DethSpïralz: A Blog

Kate: Did You Miss Me?

2012-01-19T08:44:00.001-08:00

I'm sure you did, three loyal readers. Well! Four months after my last entry, I figured it was time to start updating our skating blog again. So much has happened in the last four months both on and off the ice - I will try to condense it for you.

The last time I posted, I was on the eve of my 28th birthday. I predicted 28 would be a pretty good year for me, and so far, that prediction has been true minus a few bumps along the way. I rocked my first semester in the paralegal program and earned myself a 4.0 for the first time in my academic life. In high school, one of my teachers once commented to me that I was very smart, I was just lazy. WELL, Mr. Risinger, you were correct. I do, in fact, do quite well when I apply myself.

My personal life continues to bop along, full of friends and good things. It's nice to have a life that is full of good, loving people who I love spending time with.

Enough about stuff that isn't skating! I'll get on to what you're just dying to hear about - what's happening on the ice? Well, currently, the answer is nothing. I had another surgery in December, and my recovery time was somewhat slow. Before the surgery, though, exciting things were happening. I finally became more comfortable with the half-flip and was beginning to learn both a scratch spin and a backspin! I was working hard and seeing tons of improvement. My triumphant return to the ice is next week and honestly, I'm just hoping that I can manage to stay on my feet.

Another big issue with skating is one of the rinks in town closed, so all of the programs are down to one sheet of ice. I haven't really been affected by the changes yet since I've been recovering, so I will allow Candice to tell you about that. You will not be surprised to hear she has a lot to say.

I was really upset about becoming ill again and having to have another surgery, but I know I'll regain my strength. I've started strength training and running again in addition to skating, and it's pretty cool how the human body can bounce back. I have handled this surgery emotionally much better than last year's, and in some ways that's thanks to skating. I know my body has limitations, but I am also often amazed by what it can do despite them.

There you go! The shortest version of the last four months possible. My goal is not to let four months pass between this entry and the next. In fact, I promise I'll update again after I go back to skating next week and let y'all know how it goes!

Kate: Back In The Saddle

2011-09-21T11:16:00.000-07:00

I wrote out this whole blog entry about a month ago about skating and feelings and life and everything that's been going on, and then I never posted it. I couldn't bring myself to finish it, because it was too sad. I'm tired of sad blog entries, and sad things that happen.

So this blog entry is going to be a happy one, despite the fact that some sad things have happened recently. Tomorrow is my 28th birthday, and it's looking like 28 is going to be a good year for me. I've gone back to school to get my paralegal certification, my social life is bopping along at a good pace, and skating has vastly improved.

I went skating yesterday and it was really good. I was feeling very strong on the ice, I learned some new footwork from my friend Kelly (I missed our footwork class, so she was catching me up) and then I went to the Tuesday footwork class and discovered we are WORKING ON A PROGRAM SET TO THRILLER. That's right. It's amazing. I am so pleased, and it is so fun, and I'm actually enjoying being in a class with the kids this time. Yesterday the coach was telling Kelly and I to just observe the kids first, then join in, and one teeny tiny little girl beamed up at me and excitedly said "It's SO fun!". How cute is that? Y'all. She was correct. It is, in fact, SO fun.

So the next month will hopefully include more vast improvements on ice and possibly performing this Thriller thing in public. I will let you know if that happens, and when and where you can come see it and be vastly amused by me.

Candice: Sensible Shoes and Sh*t

2011-08-15T18:50:00.000-07:00

A year ago I was a woman who enjoyed a high heel. I had heels so high they put me up over six feet tall. Black pumps, yellow pumps, white pumps, peep-toes, and so on. I wore them to work, I wore them to dance, I wore them to intimidate others and please myself.

Along came figure skating.

Yesterday I seriously considered purchasing shoes that carried that famous moniker, known world round for his connection to shoes. No, not Manolo Blahnik. Dr. Scholl's. (They were like walking in clouds. Ugly, puffy clouds.)

Eventually I was lucky to find a pair of black flats. They're... serviceable. Sensible. They've got a nice enough detail on the toe, and enough room that I don't feel anything was being pinched, squeezed or rubbed. Because I have a pair of shoes that do that. My stupid skates. After my coach showed me just how tight I should be lacing my skates, I complained, "My toes go numb."

"Welcome to figure skating," he shot back.

Indeed. There is nothing that skating hasn't done to make my feet more sensitive and more unwilling to wear heels. Callouses, worse. Ankles, unwilling to deal with any kind of shenanigans. Toes, rebelling at the first sign of any squeezing. (I will not bore and horrify you, dear Internet, with the details of the state of my big toes. But rest assured, I could.)

While at the shoe store I picked up a beautiful pair of blue platform heels. They were a beautiful, cool, blue retro dream.

I put them on. Looked at myself in the mirror. And then I moaned pitifully. They were already starting to hurt. I put them back.

Equally distressing is that I will probably never pay as much on shoes as I will in December when I get new skates. In my fevered dreams I somehow magically manage to find $800 dollars to drop on Graf Edmontons and sleek new blades. Graf Edmonton skates are sexy in their own, skaterly way (particularly Stephane Lambiel's polished to a high patent sheen). I mean, come on, the description includes the words "stiff" and "leather." That's gotta be good, right?

Something inside me sighed and shook its head at what we have become.

I wonder if they come in blue, patent leather t-strap? No? Okay.

Kate: Friends Make Everything More Awesome

2011-07-22T12:24:00.001-07:00

Recently, Candice and I have gotten to know a lot of the other adult skaters at the rink. We've suddenly fallen into this excellent community of women and skating is even more fun than it was before. The only drawback is sometimes Practice Time turns into Gossip Time, but hey! It's worth it.

Speaking of practice, Thursday's practice was a really good one. I was there for about two hours and suddenly all these things I was struggling with have improved. It was like magic! I was even doing 3-turns fast, though when I showed my coach he looked unimpressed and told me "Let's see if you can hold it for three seconds before the turn and three seconds after." AND I DID. I was thrilled. I also got some good practice in with my spins and edges, though my jumps were not overly impressive. I never got frustrated, though!

I've started a new round of classes, which I think has helped with my confidence. I'm taking a shadowing class that teaches you pairs/synchro skating skills and several regular classes, and I'm feeling really challenged. On Tuesday, the teacher made me start learning how to go into a spin from crossovers, which is a new and scary skill for me. I suck at it so far, but that's what practice is for, right? I'm also working on improving my waltz jump - I land it incorrectly a lot, which can really hurt my ankle and my jumps are wussy. I want to improve my landing skills and start doing bigger jumps.

A lot of what was holding me back was fear. Fear of falling, fear of looking ridiculous, fear that everyone was secretly judging my skating and finding it wanting. I'm still nervous, but I find that it's becoming easier to overcome my fear and work to learn new things. A big part of that comes from this community of adult skaters - everyone is really encouraging and I feel pushed to work harder and get better.

Maybe I'll actually manage to keep that New Year's resolution and pass that pre-bronze test by December 31st!

Everything! What?

2011-07-04T07:31:00.000-07:00

Due to a tragic rope swing plus alcohol leading to stupid choices incident this weekend, I am off the ice for a few days while I allow my poor sad muscles to recover. The lesson here, people, is you should not assume you can do things you did at 21 and recover immediately. UGH.

Anyways! On to talking about skating. I went to class on Saturday and it was one of those days where everything is just wrong. In Power Skating I was slow and I had trouble doing power three turns, which, come on. I learned how to do those more than six months ago. It was ridiculous. Then, in Adult Workshop, I was just a frustrated mess.

Then: random breakthrough. Our coach was helping me with spins, and he was like "Focus on that arm! Now your core! Let's work on your balance!". There were one million small things in each element I was trying that I needed to think about, so we just took it back down to basics and I concentrated on technique, not speed. After months of frustration with spins, I finally, FINALLY am spinning on one foot again. Success! I'm not quite up to the four revolutions that Coach Yoda wants me to be at, but I'll get there.

The thing about learning skating is there are so many things you have to think about when you learn something new. Your arms need to be held the right way, your core strong, turning your head often helps. I tend to drop my right shoulder a lot which is part of why I'm having trouble with basics. Sometimes Candice and I just stand and shout "ARMS!" at each other or stare each other in the face so we remember to keep our heads up and not look at our feet.

This is such a fun sport, but at the same time it's incredibly frustrating. Sometimes I suspect we're all a bunch of crazy people, but hey. Figure skating is a GREAT thing to brag about at parties. I think I'll stick with it.

Candice: Girl, You In The Danger Zone

2011-06-29T07:11:00.001-07:00

The other day I was having a conversation with a martial arts enthusiast about sparring. He was talking about how much he enjoyed going against older sparring partners even if that meant he would get knocked down at first. The challenge of going against someone bigger, meaner, or more experienced than him was, at least, never boring. As we talked I found myself nodding my head, because I knew almost exactly what he was talking about.

Afterward, I realized I had been able to contribute to a conversation about thrill-seeking of all things. I'm probably the opposite of thrill seeking. I don't even drink coffee. I don't like jumping off of things or motorcycles or crowds or gambling. A lot of times I'll spoil myself for the ending of a movie or a book in order to save myself the problem of being in suspense. I don't even find leather-jacketed bad boys to be very attractive.

But then there's figure skating.

Yup, figure skating. As I talked to the martial artist I realized we've both chosen something that's not exactly the same as watching "Sex and the City" reruns on a stationary bike. A single misstep could mean we get our ass kicked. Both sports require us to be guided by an actual coach rather than a program on a treadmill or an exercise tape from an infomercial. Both sports have an aspect of competition in it. Both sports have the potential to make us feel like a complete fool or a total bad ass.

The only difference between us is that his opponent was another living, breathing human being and my opponent is a giant slab of ice. Well that and his sport could conceivably have a practical application in the real world. (I haven't yet figured out how figure skating will help me in the impending zombie apocalypse, but I'm working on it.) But I would also point out that his sport takes place on nice soft gym mats.

Skating is a dangerous sport designed to look pretty. A few months after I started skating a boy fell on the ice; he knocked himself out, and I believe lost a few teeth. The paramedics had to be called. He wasn't playing hockey, he wasn't trying a big jump. He was just skating and had the misfortune of falling in a very dangerous way. A few months after that I fell so hard that I had trouble sleeping on my back for a month. I wasn't playing hockey and I wasn't jumping. Just like getting into the ring, going into the rink always holds the potential for a surprise ass kicking.

Of course getting onto the rink isn't exactly like getting into the ring. Getting into a ring you're pretty much guaranteed to throw or receive at least one punch or kick. If you don't, you can't really call it sparring. Getting onto the ice, I could pretty easily avoid doing anything that might lead to a fall and still call it skating. (It just wouldn't really be the fun kind of skating, would it?) But maybe that's not any different than choosing to spar against someone you know you can beat. When I skate, no matter how I choose to do it, I'm always up against someone bigger and meaner than me. The ice is not going to pull its punches, the ice is not going to take it easy on me.

For example, I've spent an hour and a half on the ice, working at a dozen different things, flush and excited that I'm doing so well. Then I try a piece of footwork from a stand still and the next thing I know I'm on my back and something, be it my back or my wrist, is hurting. Strangely enough, almost falling is more terrifying that actually falling. Your heart races, your adrenaline kicks in, all with the thought of would could have happened. But then again there are the days I go for deeper edges, bigger (well not that big) jumps and come away bruise free.

I never know what I'm going to get, and I love it.

I used to run. I used to try and beat time and speed. My only opponent was myself and my greatest risk was doing gradual damage to a knee or somehow forgetting I was on a treadmill and shooting back into the wall. For a while though, training for a 5k was incredibly interesting to me. At the start, every milestone was thrilling but then it got boring. It got harder to go to the gym and I became complacent with my progress. Eventually, the only thing that made it interesting was the presence of TVs above the treadmills at the gym. Running was just a 30 to 45 minute appointment where I told my body to do something and then did my best to ignore it. The runner's high was nice, but no where addictive enough to make the gym worthwhile.

I've been skating for a year now, and I haven't been doing triple axels. A lot of this time has been spent practicing the basics like crossovers and stopping, edges and going backwards. I spend a lot of time wishing my 3-turns and lobes were better. Not a lot of fireworks, no razzle dazzle. Back when I told people my recent achievement in running was going for 30 minutes without stopping I got a lot of "Wow!" type reactions. I don't really get that when I tell people "I held a deep back inside edge!"

But I tell you what, I've absolutely fallen when just trying to do the basics; that back inside edge went right out from under me and I got a bruise for my trouble. The danger element is always there even if it wouldn't seem so to the average non-skater. Sticking with those edges has allowed me to finally get to some of the razzle dazzle, too. My coach and I working on three jumps, the waltz, salchow, and half-flip. When I tell people that, they get a little more impressed (probably because they're imagining the jumps they've seen on TV, but shh, don't tell).

The result of the experiment is pretty clear: I stuck with training for the 5k for no more than 3 or 4 months. After a year I'm still skating, looking to buy new skates, and I plan to compete. I'm even frustrated that my jumps aren't bigger, even with the potential for those jumps to end in a fall.

So what I mean to say is I am in the running to be the world's most mild mannered thrill-seeker.

Kate: I Return!

2011-06-25T13:10:00.000-07:00

Hello! Did you miss me? I know you did, crying into your pillow every night, wondering why I wasn't nattering about skating on the internet. I haven't posted much lately because my head is currently swimming with many feelings. My grandmother, Doris Spurlock, who was my mother's mother, passed away on June 5th very suddenly. So a lot of those feelings swimming around are grief, sadness, and a deep longing to hug my mom (who, for readers new to this blog, is also dead - she passed away in September 2009). The month of June has not been the kindest to me emotionally.

Skating, however, has been mostly kind to me. I was briefly feeling very frustrated and angry with myself because I've been struggling with some of the same old things (backwards edges FOREVER), but I joined this team at the rink that allows me to take unlimited classes. I am currently taking five classes and am thinking about taking even more next session. These are split between Saturday morning and Wednesday night and let me tell you what, taking all these classes is kicking my ass. I walked out of my last class this morning feeling like I'd been wrung out and hung to dry.

What I also felt was clearheaded for the first time in weeks. When I woke up this morning, I was feeling super grumpy and off-kilter, as I had all week. "Why even go to class?" I asked myself. "I'll just be the worst ever on the ice and it will suck". I reminded myself that I pay for these damn classes and so I best get up and get to the rink. I wasn't great at everything - we practiced 3-turns (both inside and outside) in my adult workshop class and I'm pretty sure mine were the shakiest, but I did them. When I did the right inside three turn into the left outside three turn, the only criticism the coach had was the my lobes could be bigger. That's a big thing! I did the turns correctly! My left inside was the saddest thing on earth, but I managed to do the turn at least once. Power skating was a killer - I felt like I was the slowest in the class, but I kept going. I left the rink feeling strong and accomplished.

This is why I skate. I do want to compete someday and I hope that eventually I won't be in the "slow group" in the adult workshop class, but that takes time and work. I refuse to quit skating because even on days where I'm frustrated and flustered, I still always manage to find something good in a practice. In times where my personal life has difficulties, I can go and skate it out at the rink and walk out feeling better.

I may not be the best or the fastest skater, but I really love doing it, and in the end, that's all that matters.

Candice: Zen-like Focus and Ballerina-esque Grace

2011-06-19T17:38:00.000-07:00

Two things I lack in abundance.

I was supposed to write all about my skate-a-thon week in late May. But if I tried to draw for you a diagram of my feelings about skating right now it would look like this:

I seriously cannot organize it any better than that. During any given practice I feel elation and frustration, determination and confusion, then boredom, hunger, envy, surprise, and fear. Even getting off the ice is a weird combination of never wanting to leave and wanting to instantly be home.

So my mind is a bit of a mess, and this blog entry is doomed from the start.

Some triumphs:
- My waltz jump is tons better. Tons.
- I did a tippy spin on one foot for two revolutions today.
- I am faster on the ice than I have ever been.
- My coach decided I could learn the salchow.

Some frustrations:
- I can't actually do a salchow.
- Spins have not decided to magically make sense and become easy.
- I need new boots.
- There are days where I want to clothesline the twenty-something-year-old men in hockey skates milling about me while I try to do something. Full on clothesline them.

And that may be all I've got. Other than a desire for a new skating wardrobe. Pride, aggression, progress, and as always, a long way to go.

Candice: The Honeymoon Phase

2011-05-20T20:17:00.000-07:00

So I finally bit the bullet and got out of group lessons and took up private coaching. I'm pleased to report that 100% certain I made the right choice for the following reasons:

Reason #1- I need to find out if I'm one those unlucky people that just suck at spinning. I don't want to use the excuse of "we only spent 5 minutes on it in class," anymore. Sink or swim. Am I a Lambiel or a Joubert?

Reason #2- I'm really bossy and I think my fellow classmates were going to murder me if I decide another half of a class should be devoted to what I love most (footwork).

Reason #3- Despite being incredibly sarcastic, my coach is quite fond of Yoda-like pronouncements about skating. I've already talked about his theory on trying, and during our first lesson he gave me his philosophical stance on whether or not you should say you're doing something "wrong." So really, the half hour I spend with him is the closest I'll get to starring in an inspirational sports movie.

We had our first lesson this week and I'm sure the title of this entry gives you a good idea of how it went. I mean, I do sort of wish that the first lesson had morphed into a montage so that I went from stumbling around on the ice to nervously awaiting my dark horse debut at Adult Nationals in just 5 minutes. But there was enough of a noticeable result that I'm happy to stick with it even though patience has never been one of my virtues.

Unfortunately I met this new development by kind of faltering on my practice regimen. So I can't report to you a stunning triumph in my skating, just a list of things I should continue to work on (I'll spare you). Too much real life burn out after about a month of going full throttle. However, after this weekend I am rested, refueled and feeling like I've got something to prove.

As an experiment this week I'm going to skate four days in a row including my lesson and just see what happens. Do I get better? Do I get frustrated? Do I get lazy? Do I get motivated? Do I, at long last, get scouted for the Geezerlympics?

I'll let you know.

Kate: Tears Dry On Their Own

2011-05-14T10:53:00.000-07:00

Putting it out on the front street: I cried after skating class today.

Thankfully not at the rink. I may not have much dignity, but my pride allowed me to keep a stiff upper lip and talk to my fellow classmates and not bawl into my disgusting smelling skate bag like a little kid that had dropped her ice cream. No, I waited till I was in the car with Candice and she forced me to talk to her, and that's when the weeping began.

See, we've been skating together for a year, but I am suddenly very, very far behind her in skill level. Today we were working on jumps and the coach made me practice my bunny hops and waltz jumps (jumps I learned months ago) because they need improvement. Candice was doing much more complicated stuff. I spent the whole class feeling like a frustrated failure.

Here's the truth though: I was not a failure. I finally mastered the 8-step, which is a step sequence that we learned two weeks ago that's basically this:

- 2 crossovers
- forward inside mohawk
- back-step
- backward crossover
- backward inside mohawk

I was having so much trouble with it and today I finally got it. I was doing it fast, too! My jumps were much improved, my footwork is suddenly developing much more rapidly. The reason for all of this improvement is happening is that I got new skates. New skates that fit right - my old ones were a FULL SIZE too big, which was part of what was holding me back. Lack of practice also held me back, I'll admit it, but the change between the skates is huge. The feeling is totally different. I feel much more in control of my feet with these skates.

So, why was I crying like a big old baby after class?

I've had a lot more time off the ice than Candice due to health problems and travel issues, but I feel like if I had taken care of this six months ago, maybe I'd be at the skill level I feel like I should be at. I talked to coaches a little about my skates and was generally told "Oh, don't waste the money to buy new skates, just get some insoles and you should be fine". That was also a big part of why I was so upset - I felt a little betrayed by the crappy advice and frustrated with myself for not being more assertive. I have a long history of not being assertive, and this time it really came back to bite me. I could tell something was very wrong about my skates and I wish I had listened to my body instead of outside commentary from people who could not experience what I was feeling.

You can't go back and change the past, however, so I am going to take another round of Adult Workshop and work these skates like a BOSS. I hope that in eight weeks I can report that I have mastered the elements for the pre-bronze test and am on my way to actual competing. Cross your fingers, my beloved three readers.

Candice: It's Not Me, It's You

2011-04-21T17:54:00.000-07:00

Let me just start this entry by saying, "OH MY GOD I THOUGHT I WAS BROKEN, DOOMED NEVER TO COMPLETE A SPIN BEYOND THREE CRAPPY REVOLUTIONS. WHY MEEEEEEE?"

Phew. That felt good. You might have noticed that after my one enthusiastic post about spinning I sort of never mentioned it again. And the reason is I spent a year being awful at it. A year! I didn't admit it to very many people but it was frustrating me to the point that I sort of felt like a fool. I mean, it's not like I was upset I had not mastered a spin combo. I was upset that I could not actually spin. A few months, sure, a year, though? I mean, was I really expected to spend two years mastering the most basic of spins.

Now, you're probably wondering why my coaches didn't help me. I'm not 100% sure, but spins must be some sort of red-headed stepchild to most coaches, because for the longest time every coach, everyone of them, would generally be like, "Oh, yeah, spins" in the last five minutes of class. Meaning the I got about one minute of instruction with such gems as "Yeah, that's not too bad."

Perhaps the problem was practice. I despised being bad at them. I hated trying again and again for something that was slow and unstable and nothing like the spins that make me so happy to watch. But then I had to remind myself that it's been a year and even a year of so-so practice should yield some sort of result.

The problem, it turns out, was just that no one seemed to believe I really wanted to get better at them. Our new coach has a lot of experience with adult skaters and when I said I wanted to learn how to improve my spins, he basically improved them in two ten minute lessons.

First, he showed me how to enter a spin moving. Then, he told me to bend my stupid knees. Why those two things never occurred to a coach before, I have no idea. But those two tidbits of advice were all I need to go from HORRIBLE WOBBLY SPIN THAT LOOKS SUPER LAME to "holy shit that was actually... centered." Leading me to feel two wildly disparate emotions the first being, "Yay!" the second being, "Wtf?"

I don't know why in a year no one thought to tell me to hold my body a different way. Did they think I'd just figure that one out on my own? Did they think I got a kick out of being bad at spins? Did they think I didn't actually want to know? I guess it doesn't really matter. The point is that I'm done with lessons. Once this next round is over I'll be getting a coach for private lessons, monetary investment be damned, because I'm not spending another year waiting for someone to point out that my arm is in the wrong place.

Kate: Ice Castles

2011-04-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

I'm going to take a break from nattering about skating classes because, frankly, I've been off the ice for two weeks due to travel. Today was supposed to be my triumphant return to the ice, but I appear to be developing an upper respiratory infection, so instead the plan for today is to take it easy, then go skating for three hours tomorrow.

Moving on! Last night Candice and I decided to watch Ice Castles, a delightful movie from 1978 about a girl overcoming adversity to become awesome at skating. OR SO WE THOUGHT. Warning: there will be spoilers in this post, though I kind of feel like getting angry about spoilers from a movie that is THIRTY-THREE years old is a little silly.

We expected the movie to be bad because it was 1.) about ice skating and 2.) made in the 70's. What we did not expect was the movie to be BALLS TO THE WALL CRAZY. We were tweeting throughout the movie, and here are some examples of our feelings as the movie went from "Wow, everyone in this movie is just here to cash a paycheck" to "Um, the main character appears to now be an attic-lurking zombie wearing her dead mother's clothes. What?"

"So Ice Castles is as schlocky as I hoped but everyone is napping through this movie. Also lololol a full house at Regionals."

"Apparently triples were just crowd pleasing acrobatics back in the 70s. Why would anyone want to do them? #icecastles"

"I'm already tired of watching split jumps holy crap. #icecastles"

If you've seen Showgirls know how hilarious it is when everyone is practically salivating over Nomi Malone's "abilities." That's pretty much what was going on with this movie. At one point this character is so over-awed by the main character's "natural" "talent" that she has like a meltdown... at a Christmas Special. Where apparently the main character qualifies for Regionals? WTF, Ice Castles?

And at first it seems like family fun (well, not that Showgirls was ever family fun, the comparison ends with the amazement over "talent"), and then suddenly the main character is playing with her nipples in front of a mirror. And that, my friends, is where the movie really veers off into insanity. We were tweeting away sarcastically about dated ideas about jumps and hilariously full houses at lame competitions, and then:

"She's had one glass of wine and now she's molesting an ice sculpture. #icecastles"

"Let that be a lesson to you all. Don't skate after drinking champagne. It leads to blurred tantrums about how you CAN'T SEE! #icecastles"

"Oh my god now she's a blind zombie wearing her dead mother's clothes. This movie is 900% more crazier than anticipated. #icecastles"

Yup. SPOILERS: She tries a double axel at a party, falls, hits her head on a table and goes blind. She then spends the next half hour lurking in the attic at her dad's house, wearing her dead mom's clothes and refusing to shower. You should watch this movie for the scene where her ice skating mentor kicks her ass up there, it's totally just like "The Miracle Worker". EVEN EXTRA SPOILERS: The miracle is she learns to skate while quasi-blind and comes back to kick ass at... Sectionals. Not exactly a Rocky Balboa triumph over the best the Soviets has to offer. More like a mild triumph over the the best a portion of America has to offer. But the point is it took pluck, I guess.

They remade this movie in 2010. Oh, yeah, they did. Clearly, Candice and I must watch it to see how they deal with this whole "doing triples is a parlor trick!" issue. And also if the 2010 version is just as crazy, with the attic lurking and the blind ass kicking and the random nipple touching.

So there you have it. If you've ever wondered "Hmmm, should I watch Ice Castles?", the answer is clearly a giant Y-E-S. Just make sure you have strong drinks and a good friend to commentate with, otherwise it's going to be two hours of bafflement. Don't worry. We'll let you know if the 2010 version is just as amazing. We're here for you, my dear four readers. We've got your back.

Candice: 5 going on 50

2011-03-29T10:32:00.001-07:00

So me and my heating pad have been getting reacquainted. Perhaps like the Electric Blanket character from The Brave Little Toaster, my heating pad is happy to be cuddled again once more despite the shift in Texas towards spring. As for myself, I'd really rather I didn't need to desperately cling to it in order to stay in bed or get out of it.

Three weeks ago (that's three, as in almost a month) I was failing to master choctaws when my feet went out from under me and all 900 feet of me (approx.) hit the ice squarely on my tailbone. I got up again and skated for another 15 minutes in an effort to prove that I was tougher than skating. And maybe I did, but by that night I had a lovely purple bruise blooming like a flower in a crack of concrete (get it?) and a lot of soreness. Skating got the last laugh, but I thought with the fading of the bruise, so to might the pain fade.

Nope.

Nope times 100.

For a few days walking and sitting and sleeping and existing were all reason enough to be in pain. Walking, sitting, and existing did eventually became comfortable again, but sleeping (ALAS! My FAVORITE thing) did not. Even taking ibuprofen before bed was laughably ineffective. For the past three weeks no matter what I did, I would wake up roughly once every hour as the pain punched through my slumber and demanded that I roll over and try to find a more comfortable position. Once or twice there was nothing for it, even lying on my stomach hurt and I just had to wait for sleep to win out over the discomfort.

Thus, the most embarrassing Google search in a long time: "falling on ice butt injury." My butt, it was injured from falling on ice. Last time I posted I wrote about how I felt skating was, in some ways, an expensive and showy waste of time and money. Now I feel like skating is turning me into a hybrid baby old person, someone who falls constantly; someone who when they fall looks up at the ceiling in pure shock that such a thing could happen before clutching their hip and whining about not being able to get up; someone in need of some miracle cream to cure their butt woes.

Alas, there doesn't appear to be a miracle cream. Or even a miracle pill. According to WebMD I either have butt cancer, or I'll just have to be patient, stay active, avoid positions that hurt, and either ice it or using the heating pad until the pain disappeared. I was worried ice would trigger some sort of PTSD attack for my poor traumatized butt, so heating pad it was. It helps. I used it Sunday and, though I still woke up, slept much better than I had in a while. I used it last night, and woke up only in a little pain. Five extra minutes lying on top of the heating pad made me simultaneously more capable of getting out of bed and less willing.

And yet still I shall skate. Neither cold, nor lack of talent, nor lack of money, nor aching butt will keep my from the ice.

My butt isn't too happy about that, but oh well.

Kate: Breaking News: Nine Year Olds are SASSY.

2011-03-21T17:39:00.000-07:00

We got split up into groups in my last skating class and told to create a footwork sequence. The tiny blonde nine year old who was clearly the bossiest member of my group (in a group the includes me AND Candice, trust me, that is impressive) was like “let’s start with a twizzle!” I informed her that neither of us could, in fact, twizzle. She put her hands on her hips and gave me a look of disdain usually reserved for parents or people who don’t know who Justin Bieber is. “What? You can’t TWIZZLE?” In my head, I was like “Um, I can DRIVE and VOTE and STAY UP AS LATE AS I WANT, so NYAH” but out loud I just asked her to show me what to do.

Why was I in a class full of sassy pre-teens? Well, I’ll tell you.

Candice and I were doing the whole Adult Workshop class thing for a while, but that class was full of people and became really stressful because we just couldn’t seem to learn anything new in the crush. So we decided, what would be a better idea than switching to a footwork class with one of the most popular coaches? A footwork class that just happens to be full of nine year olds and one other adult besides us?

Let me tell you, people, there are a lot of better ideas than that, at least if you want to hang on to your dignity.

I feel that we have made it clear that we’ve made peace with the lack of dignity that comes along with learning to figure skate, though, so we were pretty much in heaven. Except for the part where all those nine year olds could do WAY better than us at footwork. Wait, hang on. Let me rephrase that. They were doing way better than ME. Candice could sort of keep up with them as they were galloping across the ice, doing three turns and Mohawks and whatever like little mini gazelles. I was always the last one lumbering across the ice, struggling to get the footwork sequences or turns or whatever we were doing.

I got really, really frustrated in that class. It showed me that my half-assed approach to practice is really coming home to roost as we come up on a year of skating and I’m still struggling to learn the most basic of things. The coach who ran the class managed to keep me from exploding in a ball of frustration by 1. Expecting me to try as hard as I could and 2. Encouraging me when I got things right. It’s so basic, so childish in a way, but all I really needed was someone besides Candice to be like “I know you can do this, so shut the hell up and DO IT. Awww, that was good, try again.” I’ve been practicing more often so that I don’t embarrass myself when I go back to classes. Magic of magic, wonder of wonders, my footwork has really improved.

My next class will be with adults again, though. Seriously, y’all. Those kids are BRUTAL.

Candice: Wait why am I doing this again?

2011-03-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

At some point in the last week I probably would have sold my soul to go back in time and not pick up skating as a hobby. Between the misery of being over invested in the state of Japanese skaters after the quake and tsunami as well as figure skating World Championships which were to have occurred in Tokyo, and the misery of being unable to sleep because I hurt myself sort of badly skating, I was ready to wash my hands of it.

Beyond that I was also experiencing a major crisis of faith. Kate and I are toddling up to our first full year of skating and lessons. With the exception of a two-month break from classes, we've been making a concerted effort at this for a long enough time that everyone is expecting some results. On my birthday a few months ago, my sister who had not yet seen me skate at all asked me if I could jump. I suppose I can, a waltz jump has the word "jump" right in the title, but my waltz jumps leave something (everything) to be desired. They're about as timid as they can be without never having both feet leave the ground. My sister smiled encouragingly at what I managed to show her, but didn't exactly express any awe. It was okay, I wasn't that impressed myself.

A month later I'd learn the lead up to the half flip jump, but after being taught how I never received any follow up on why it didn't feel comfortable. It's not my instructors fault really, there was just too much else to teach. I was still struggling with some aspects of 3-turns, my spins, my spirals, my lunges, and pretty much everything. I've already had to dial down my expectations a lot from where I'd started, but I never would have believed that mastery of a Basic 5 skill would still be just out of reach after a year of trying.

It was beyond frustrating. Even embarrassing. What an obvious, and overly advertised waste of time. And all this after posting about how Bright Girls give up when things get hard. It was right there in front of me, "Keep working, keep practicing," but still I was pouting. In an effort to prove the article and everyone wrong, I went to my practices and spent an hour and a half on the ice each time. By last Friday I was still frustrated, still half-thinking about quitting.

Yesterday I went to the rink with Kate and at the end of an hour and a half I realized I could do a LFO (left forward outside) 3-turn, LFI (left forward inside) 3-turn, and LFI mohawk on a circle. I did a RFO 3 turn, RFI mohawk, and an RFI 3-turn on a circle. During my last class we were taught twizzles and the choctaw step. As of yesterday, I can do an ugly example of both going one direction.

For those of you keeping score at home: 3 new types of turns that I could not do last month (inside 3-turn, twizzle, choctaw). I also completed a pretty good looking LFO spiral. I think we can all be proud of me.

Last Thursday I skated by myself and practiced my waltz jump and, while they're not going to win any medals any time soon, by the end they started feeling like actual jumps. My lunges and spins are... improving. A little. Too little if you ask me, but horrifyingly the paragraph right above this one seems to indicate that I will still have keep to skating, and keep trying to improve them because they may, in fact, get better.

Ah well.

PS- A shout out to everyone who reads and the few that comment. I get beyond excited about each comment, but I can't figure out who to reply directly to you. No matter, just know I'm thrilled about you.

Candice: I'm Not a Natural But...

2011-03-02T09:55:00.000-08:00

I just came across a wonderfully insightful article, The Trouble With Bright Girls at the Huffington Post website. The article is based around a study which revealed the following:

...Bright Girls, when given something to learn that was particularly foreign or complex, were quick to give up; the higher the girls' IQ, the more likely they were to throw in the towel. In fact, the straight-A girls showed the most helpless responses.

Hello, Candice's reaction to High School, how are you aside from being perfectly summed up?

Psychologist Carol Dweck has discovered the way in which girls are praised have affected their outlook on difficult tasks. "Girls, who develop self-control earlier and are better able to follow instructions, are often praised for their 'goodness.' When we do well in school, we are told that we are 'so smart,' 'so clever,' or 'such a good student.' This kind of praise implies that traits like smartness, cleverness and goodness are qualities you either have or you don't."

Hello, Candice's entire life since birth, how are you aside from being a mind blowing revelation?

A little back story, my dad was a tall, smart, creative, funny and hard working person. This, according to my mother, meant I was also destined to be tall, smart, creative, funny and hard working. To listen to her tell it, I didn't have to try to be any of these things, they were just coded into my DNA. Done and done, all I have to do is sit back and wait for my innate talents to bloom.

With the exception of being tall, obviously that attitude was not exactly true. Through a beneficial confluence of circumstances I did manage to become 5'10", get on a few honor rolls, a Dean's list, etc. My creativity, nascent in the "drawing things with crayons" phase of life, did in fact blossom once I entered the "write well enough to put a story together" part of life. Funny didn't really all come together for me until high school and the internet. That just leaves hard working.

I have to work hard at being a hard worker. If I think something will reflect poorly on me as a person I will diligently work at it until absolutely no one can deny that Candice should not be chastised, and should even be praised. If I think I can get away with it though, oh the corners I will cut.

Which brings me back to high school (and then college), when I could do a paper in the hour before it was due and pull a B+. I could coast through math and get a passing grade. I could do the summary, annotated bibliography, and first draft of a paper and then not turn in the actual final draft of the paper and pass the class. So I did. My intelligence was never really doubted by my teachers, but my ability to get shit done definitely was. I've stated many times that if I could just go back in time and slap myself across the face, and tell myself that doing homework DID have a point and that point was opening doors later in life, I would. In a heartbeat.

I'd also tell myself to get up and move. My basic motto about sports was, "If at first you don't succeed, write it off and never do it again." If running was hard, then why bother running? Not being able to run didn't affect my intelligence, my creativity. All I had to do was show up to PE in order to pass the class, so I cut all other available corners that required effort. And more importantly, required I fail the first few times.

Boys, on the other hand, are a handful. Just trying to get boys to sit still and pay attention is a real challenge for any parent or teacher. As a result, boys are given a lot more feedback that emphasizes effort (e.g., "If you would just pay attention you could learn this," "If you would just try a little harder you could get it right.") The net result: When learning something new is truly difficult, girls take it as sign that they aren't "good" and "smart," and boys take it as a sign to pay attention and try harder.

They're talking about schoolwork here, but where I needed to hear it most was physical activity. Kate likes to say she was a natural at skating, a little whiz at the ice from an early age which she later abandoned in pursuit of tween-age ennui. It's an aspect of skating that we simply cannot share with each other. The first few times I was on ice, I was slow, I fell, and I was not a natural. Replace "first few times I was on the ice" with "any sport I ever tried ever and you've got the summary of my ability to instantly pick up a sport.

For me the ice is something I have to "pay attention and try harder" at. All the time. Every time. Working a regular schedule means that I'm able to make a weekly appointment with myself to skate for an hour that I rarely miss. Kate's had interruptions here and there described before in this blog. If I had to say who had practiced the most, it would be me.

And after almost a year of skating there are things Kate can do better than me, and things that I can do better than she can. The results, unique to each of us, are roughly even. Our enjoyment of the sport? Dead even. The result of the experiment is that if I'd put in time, effort, and practice as a child I might well have been a decent player of any sport. A star? A natural? I suppose not, but I can confidently say that doesn't detract from the value, and enjoyment I could have had.

This article was a lesson learned too late in some ways. I can't go back and re-do my years in high school and undergrad. I can't go back and tell myself that volleyball might have been a worthwhile thing to keep trying at. I can use the lesson now, in skating, at my job, and in a lot of other things.

Candice: Self-fulfilling Prophecy

2011-02-17T06:40:00.000-08:00

I've made a lot of jokes about figure skating being the sport of masochistic loners what with the lack of an obvious team effort and the falling. But if you know me, you know I'm the opposite of masochistic. I'm a hedonist! I love fine food and wine to excess! I love lounging in bed, or on a comfortable couch! I love cotton and satin and velvet! My ideal vacation is much more "9 hours of sleep, stroll through a museum, fine dining, sit in a park, and people watch" and much less "Camp out and then go white water rafting at 6am."

So really, it makes no sense for me to be in this sport. The boots are uncomfortable. The ice is hard and cold and wet. I've fallen so hard I still felt the bruises two weeks later. Getting ready for more vigorous jumps I find myself thinking I should really cut back on the cookies if I ever want try an axel. Skating is completely antithetical to my way of living.

And yet, I adore it.

Added to this unpleasant mix, is the recent development that from time to time my knee hurts. The pain is nothing to write home about, I think it ranks somewhere between "a little stiff" and a "twinge" but my reaction to it surprised me. I had this weird moment of, "I'm an athlete, bitch."

Which is of course, not true. I spend roughly three - five hours a week on the ice. Max. This past week I went four days in a row and by the fourth day I was like, "Lord, what am I even doing here?" That hardly constitutes living and breathing a sport. And anyway, I'm pretty sure knitters could at least knit every day and still call themselves a hobbyist. And I'm sure if they knit every day their hands would be a bit crampy and they wouldn't really think much of it.

But again, see my usual roster of activities. Eating, drinking, reading, lounging, none of these activities usually give you much more than a stomach ache, a hangover, or a limb that has fallen asleep because you had it folded for too long (as if you spent so much time not moving that your body gave up and forgot it had hands or feet). When I was a runner I was mercifully free of any lingering pain issues. My knees and ankles never bothered me after I finished the run, and the biggest challenge was just dealing with the burn when I tried to go for a longer time or a faster pace.

So this is new for me. This is something that hopefully will not, but possibly could, turn into something like that "Love Hurts" Gatorade commercial (which is sadly NOT on YouTube). Maybe one day it'll be ME grimacing in pain while covered in fluorescent sweat. Being a hedonist, shouldn't I turn away from this path and look for a comfy couch? No. Instead I find myself thinking, "Hey, it'll be okay, because then I'll know I went the distance." Now I know that's pretty dramatic. The distance for me will be taking two or three test levels.

So I have to embrace and enjoy the melodrama, and delude myself into thinking I'm testing the limits of my body rather than just, I don't know, aging. Otherwise, I'd just stop skating, too afraid that it'll take out my knee someday. Eternal glory is a lot more attractive than "nightly applications of Bengay."

But what is harder to do is have this same attitude toward bruises. Knee pain appeal to my womanly understanding of suffering in silence. Bruises are in direct conflict with my womanly desire to have perfect legs. There's currently a thumb sized bruise on my left calf, exposed for all the world to see because I am wearing a skirt. It's nothing new, a bruise on a knee cap for two weeks to be followed by one on my hip, and then a brief reprieve from bruises, only to get a blister on my pinky toe when I wear the wrong socks to a practice session. Skating was supposed to make me PRETTY, dammit.

Despite it all I keep going. And will keep going. Because I've apparently actually become the tiniest bit masochistic.

Kate: Falling Is Like This

2011-02-09T07:17:00.000-08:00

So! In my last post, I was all like "la-di-da, I am amazing at skating despite being out of it for a month, I am so awesome, 2011 is the BEST EVAH, what is up ladies and gents?" Well, 2011 is still going pretty well - I'm behaving like a responsible adult on a pretty regular basis. Somehow I have still managed not to fulfill most of my resolutions, but whatever. The bathroom is clean and my to-do list is being taken care of. I go to bed at a reasonable hour every night and get up at the same time every day. These are all wins.

You know what wasn't a win? Going to skating class last week and getting a slap of reality by falling on my face not once, but TWICE. The first time we were doing crossovers in a figure eight and I went too deep on my edge and BAM, down on my hip. I was so embarrassed - the other girls in this class are doing, like, rotational jumps and camel spins and I fell on a freaking crossover. I got back up, gathered my tattered pride around me and kept going. A few minutes later, our teacher made us do lunges and spirals for warm-ups. OF COURSE the higher level girls are doing better than me, but I managed to do some respectable lunges and spirals without falling, so I was feeling pretty good.

Then. Oh, then. Our teacher is like "So, everyone knows how to do bunny hops, right?" Bunny hops are the easiest of jumps. So we're all like "Yeah, of course, duh" and she's like "Okay! Final warm-up! Do bunny hops across to the other line!" Everyone takes off, bunny hopping away (which looks ridiculous, the jump looks like you've tripped and are stumbling along) and I go, take off, and land.....on my kneecap. And then flop to my stomach, my left arm taking my weight as I collapse completely and slide across the ice, penguin-style.

Why do I always do that?

Our teacher was horrified and rushed over, all like "are you okay?" and I didn't even bother gathering my tattered pride this time because I had none left. I just got up as gracefully as I could manage (which was not gracefully at all) and said I was fine and kept going. The rest of class was pretty demoralizing - I was super shaky, even practicing easy things, and I could not seem to get up the courage to jump again. The worst part was I had spent almost two hours at the rink the day before practicing my jumps and turns and stuff, so I came into class ready to be a bad-ass and was pretty thoroughly demoralized by my complete lack of bad-assed-ness.

Here's hoping this weekend's class is better and kinder to both my knees and my dignity.

Candice: An Unhealthy Obsession with a Healthy Obsession

2011-01-31T07:03:00.000-08:00

The ISU wants me to go crazy. Why else did they schedule US Nationals alongside the European Championships? Today is the first day since Wednesday that I'm not glued to a computer or television screen watching a live feed of an event. They got me hooked, kept me high, and now I'm sitting here with the shakes going, "But, but I just don't understand. Why can't I have any more?" I'm this close to robbing an old lady of her purse, just so I can go to a traveling production of Elmo on Ice, or whatever.

Though I doubt Elmo's pantomiming would create the same kind of catharsis as watching Florent Amodio transformed into the happiest six year old boy you've ever seen by winning gold. Nor would the part of the play where he loses his favorite toy wreck me as much as Jeremy Abbott's 4th place finish. But it would at least be skaters on ice, and with only slightly more fur and feathers than Johnny Weir's crazier costumes.

In addition to the competitions, there is also the exciting development that I have learned my first toepick assisted jump. There were roughly two dozen ladies and two dozen men skating in Europe, the same number skating in US Nationals, almost all skating two programs. Not everybody went for the flip, but enough did that I must have watched somewhere in the ballpark of at least fifty flips (or at least flips and flutzes combined) in the past five days.

Previously forward and backward crossovers, three-turns, mohawks and lunges were pretty much all I had in common with my beloved competitive skaters. So I can only imitate roughly 1% of what they do on the ice right now. Well that and slow, strained spirals. Adding a toepick assisted jump at least brings it up to 2%. Put my tiny little waltz jump and my flip together along with my 5 second footwork sequence and you've got the world's shortest, and technically pathetic program. But still.

Saturday night I went to an unusually awesome party but I refused to let myself indulge too much, lest I wake up unable to try the flip again on Sunday. My only concession to the good time I was having was to stay up just a little too late. I got only six hours of sleep, but a lazy Sunday in bed held no allure. I got up, made breakfast, and got to the rink five minutes before they finished resurfacing the ice.

My usual Sunday skating was paired with watching the the American men skate their free on TV (so many tears and surprises and surprise tears), creating a DethSpiralz twitter account so that I can live tweet 4CC and Worlds with Kate, vacuuming every inch of my apartment to rid it of the tumbleweeds of cat hair rolling about on the carpet, doing laundry, and spending time with both my cats and my boyfriend.

I didn't just burn the candle at both ends yesterday, I made new wicks and burned it at the top, bottom and a few places in the middle. I woke up this morning with a sore shoulder, a sore back, and a feeling that I didn't get near enough sleep to make up for the energy I put out on Sunday. I could have easily put out at least one fire yesterday and saved the energy from skating so that I could have done one more thing, like go to the grocery store, or make dinner instead of buying it.

But that would have been impossible. Even right now, sitting at my computer all I can think about is getting back on to the ice and trying it again. Or failing that, I want to try the flip again and again on the floor. Or see how much closer I can get to an attractive catch foot position so that my spirals can at least be slow, faltering, but also pretty.

I'm just going to have to get a bigger candle.

Kate: No Time For Losers

2011-01-24T17:00:00.000-08:00

Well, here's an update on my resolutions: not a single one has been taken care of. Passing the pre-bronze test has been advanced towards...sort of? In that I'm skating again? But cooking, off-ice training, and buying cowboy boots? None of these things have happened.

IN MY DEFENSE, I had surgery less than a month ago and my recovery has been slower than when I was younger, which my doctor teased me about when I was like "what's up with that?" Surprise, everyone! You don't bounce back from ANYTHING as fast when you get older! Sigh.

I am recovering, though, and am trying to make plans that involve getting back on that resolution train. Candice and I have named 2011 "The Year of Not Fucking Around Anymore, Seriously This Time". I have been stretching after I skate and trying to remember to take anti-inflammatory drugs before I go on the ice to help with pain.

So, on to the skating. I went back a week or so ago, and was really nervous. I was convinced that I had forgotten everything and would slide around like Bambi, weeping about my lack of muscle tone and embarrassing myself in front of the other skaters.

THAT DID NOT HAPPEN. In fact, I improved on some things! My inside 3-turns are a lot better and I'm jumping better, too! Yeah, that's RIGHT, people. I went back on the ice less than three weeks after surgery and mothereffing JUMPED. I felt like the biggest badass ever until my abs and thighs were like "We hate you" and got so shaky I had to get off and rest. I'm still rebuilding muscle, and I can't skate as long as I could before I stopped, but I'm doing really well. Plus, as a final braggy note, we signed up for Adult Basic 4 again, figuring we needed to really get the skills for it down before moving up to "Adult Workshop", which is where you learn the really fun and harder stuff.

Well! We have been moved up to workshop! We're too good for Adult Basic 4! I was so excited when the workshop teacher (who used to teach our Basic 4 class before we took a break) pulled me aside after class and was like "Um, you need to move up" and the Basic 4 teacher agreed.

Everything is going well. 2011, for real. It's all about not screwing around.

Candice: I swear to God, I'm going to kick skating's ass this year

2011-01-17T06:15:00.000-08:00

I mean well. I think that comes across, right? I pick up a challenging hobby like figure skating and I say, "I'm really going to dedicate myself to this." I make big goals about what I'll have accomplished with it in just one year, I make plans about how I'm going to increase my flexibility. I start a blog with my friend, and I make big promises to myself about providing regular, insightful, hopefully funny updates. Grandiose dreams of becoming "internet famous" (one step above being famous in a small town) without putting in much effort in ensue. The new year starts and I say, "No really. Diet Town. Population: Me." You already know where this is going.

While the blog and the diet (and the attempts to get more flexible) have all become cobblestones of failed good intentions on the road to becoming lazier, heavier and still inflexible, the skating, at least in part, continued. In the face of the holidays, social commitments, and well, let's say challenges at work, the temporary sabbatical from lessons unfortunately continued for the full 8 week semester. Thankfully a lack of lessons did not stop me from skating at least once a week. (It did, however, stop me from learning anything new.)

I'm happy to report that I've gotten even better at the things I was already pretty good at. The footwork sequence making use of all of my strengths can now be done at a speed that feels impressive (at least, I'm impressed). Forward crossovers, feh, easy peasy! Backwards crossovers? Much less terrifying and way more consistent. Outside three-turns? I can do a hundred of them before breakfast.

Oh but what about the things that I wasn't so good at? Inside three turns? Footwork that puts the emphasis on my weaker leg? Again, you already know where this is going. Don't patronize me with your insincere curiosity and I won't patronize you by pretending that they're not just as dreadful as ever. Despite all the good intentions, practice, and trying I've done in the past months, if there's one thing that I've learned it's that I'm more stubborn than myself.

Wait, what?

What I mean to say is no matter how many times I tell myself, "You're going to work on inside three turns until you've mastered them," the outcome never changes. I will get on the ice do a few, shaky half completed inside three turns and think, "This sucks. Not being good at something is way less fun than being good at something." Almost immediately I rebel against practice makes perfect, and rely instead on look what I can do! Unfortunately the same applies to nearly everything I want to do that requires discipline. See also: diet and stretching. Further reference: time management and my budget.

You might have noticed that the name attached to this blog is Verochka Grinkov. Verochka Grinkov is the name I decided should be applied not to my imaginary friend, but to my imaginary life coach. In my mind, Verochka is a solid, no-nonsense Russian woman in head-to-toe fox fur. Her hair is dyed the same aggressive red as her lipstick. She frowns at me constantly. Verochka is the voice in my head that tells me to shut up and skate, sighs in dismay when I have the fourth (or fifth, or seventh) cookie, and tells me to walk it off when I get an unexpected kick in the keister from life. If Verochka was a real person, my life would be in much better shape because I would probably be terrified of her. Alas, though, she is easily dissipated with a wave of my hand, leaving me to my cookies and lethargy.

Alas, Verochka Grinkov is not real, but there are figure skating that are. I've signed up for another round of lessons, and hopefully their polite but disappointed faces when they tell me to execute an inside three turn will at last shame me into trying harder at them. I'm hoping that with lessons blog updates will become much more regular, skating will become much more fulfilling, and progress will become much more quantifiable. All good things.

But you know, in that same vein, I should probably start calling my mother after every meal in order to get an approximation of Verochka's disapproval at eating the same soup for three days until I go crazy and decide life will only be worth living if I eat three tacos with chips and queso. Hey! Maybe I could even tape Martha Stewarts face to the side of my cats and be guilted into doing the dishes more often!

Kate - Reminding Yourself to Breathe In And Out

2011-01-06T16:40:00.000-08:00

Well, I’ve had another break from skating thanks to the surgery. I’m waiting until my post-op appointment to go back to it and we resume classes on the 22^nd, so this blog should be a lot more active then. We’ll have new things we’re learning and exciting stuff to talk about.

My surgery included some Very Bad News, which I am somewhat uncomfortable discussing here despite having discussed it elsewhere on the internet. Listen, I’m weird this stuff. So, let’s just say it’s going to take me some time to come to grips with it. It’s also kicking up the grief I have over losing my mother. I wish she were here so I could talk to her and get some advice.

She isn’t, though, and I can’t change the Bad News. I can only move forward, and I am going to start that by actually posting in this thing. I’m going to document my New Year’s resolutions. I used to not really make them, figuring I was just setting myself up for failure, but then last year I made one and it was “find a physical activity I actually enjoy and stick with it” and I DID! So, inspired by that, I made more than one resolution this year:

1. Pass the Adult Pre-Bronze test before December 2011 so I can start competing.

2. Start cooking at least twice a week like a goddamn adult.

3. Actually do off-ice training instead of waking up and being like "Oh, I suddenly...don't....want to." and then being lazy.

4. Finally stop dithering and buy a pair of cowboy boots. Seriously, I've been thinking about this for like four years. It's time.

Wish me luck! Hopefully I’ll be able to keep at least three out of four!

Candice: 'elp, 'elp I'm being repressed

2010-12-04T13:16:00.000-08:00

Come and see the condescension inherent in the system!

So I frequently forget that I have an actual, physical mailbox. I'm 99% sure that my postman wants to throttle me because I check it roughly once a month, meaning he has to shove more and more "Bed, Bath, and Beyond" catalogs into a mailbox already stuffed to the brim with credit card offers, and a many desperate reminders from Time Warner and AT&T that I could purchase a phone, cable, and internet package from them. Yesterday I decided to give him a break and check my mail.

To my surprise in my mail I found a magazine from United States Figure Skating (USFS) describing Basic Skills of 2011. I must have signed up for it somehow and not realized. The cover features two photos of Evan Lysacek, our 2010 Olympic Gold Medalist, competing in Vancouver (phallic snakes and feather cuffs and all) as well as the cheerfully simplistic motto "It's Great to Skate!" It is, isn't it? What wonders could be contained in this bit of propaganda?

The answer is a lot of short, unintentionally hilarious articles aimed at someone who is not a sarcastic 26 year old. For example, there is a piece entitled "Developing a competitive spirit can be rewarding and fun" with hints about getting ready for your first evaluation or competition. "Always have a back up copy of your music" which is good, sound advice. "Have fun and smile!" is also a classic mantra for young competitors. Then again it also says, "Ladies, allow time to dress and finish your hair and make up." I'm pretty sure Johnny Weir (demurely pictured in the pull out poster directly next to this article in his mascara and white fox fur beside 7 other men who are also wearing costumes with rhinestones on them) would insist that this is sound advice for figure skaters of all genders.

The magazine also comes with cut out flashcards naming some interesting basic skills. Seven of the nine cards feature girls performing the basic moves like forward stroking, mohawks, and spirals. The two cards that feature boys are "Hockey Stop" showing two boys in hockey skates, and "Forward Crossovers" the lucky card to have the only little boy in the entire magazine wearing figure skates (other than a cartoon, and a picture of a young Evan Lysacek). The message is loud and clear: Figure skating, it's really for nine-year-old girls.

Just to let you know, USFS, I got that message loud and clear when Kate and I were the only persons to show up to Adult Basic skating on a Saturday morning.

More than halfway through I get to a tiny little article by Brenda Glidewell which is the kind of obvious name I would expect from a JK Rowling character. (Get it? Brenda Glidewell glides well across the ice.) Anyway, she starts off with the argument that figure skating was "[o]nce viewed as a sport for the young" and she's already lost me. It still is, there's just a persistent, freak minority apparently. She continues later with a Beatles-esque truism "Even those who have never stepped on the ice, or skated infrequently in the past, can become involved in skating." True. Lack of prior experience skating does not preclude you from trying skating for the first time, and there's nothing you can find that can't be found.

"Skaters participate in skating for several reasons," she tells us some of which have been explored here in this blog. Stress relief, having fun or achieving personal satisfaction, improving fitness, continuing a love that began as a youth. More condescending is the "passing time while their children are in a basic skills class" providing a counterargument to her assertion that skating was only once thought of a young person's sport within her own article. More baffling is the "social networking" as I've explored in this blog that it's actual a pretty difficult little society to break into. "Way of finding fellow vaguely masochistic loners" would be a better description, but perhaps that's not suited for children.

"Skating ability is never a concern or barrier for participation." This is the exactly the kind of backhanded compliment I expect from my mother. "She doesn't really have the ability, but she tries and we're so proud of her for that." The USFS has branded us as mere participants. Also rans. Their motto: Any adult can (...try)! "The focus of skating as an adult is on the joy one feels while on the ice mastering new skills," she says. Sure! But I feel that this is a pretty bleak assessment of what the nine-year-olds are apparently doing on the ice. Can't they focus on the joy, too? Or must they all dream of being an Olympic champion and requiring knee surgery by the time they're twenty? Somewhere a Russian coach is screeching at a child, "Stop feeling joy at mastering the double flip and show me a triple!" Poor kid. Just wait until you're adult and the expectations get much, much lower.

Now after being so unkind I should point out that the last few paragraphs of the article are actually much more exciting. Rather than making excuses for the novelty of an adult skating, she talks about joining figure skating clubs, participation in competitions and and ice shows in a general positive and upbeat tone. Things that people might actually want to do.

I acknowledge that the parents of the nine-year-old girls who hope one day to have a Michelle Kwan or Sasha Cohen in their family are the people bringing the most money on the USFS. I acknowledge that the nine-year-olds will provide the next crop of stars for you to promote figure skating with. But in the words of Monty Python, "What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior!"

Candice: Noodling on ice.

2010-12-03T09:12:00.000-08:00

It's harder than you might think. One of my many, many, many unrealistic expectations getting into figure skating was that I would quickly reach a point where I felt super comfortable on the ice and would be able to try little tricks. I'm pretty sure I was thinking, "I bet eventually I'll just try a twizzle and see what happens." Ha. (Ha.) In non-skating terms, this would probably be the equivalent of a four year old thinking that as soon as he gets his hands on a stove he's going to be Emeril Lagasse. Shortly thereafter the toddler discovers that the stove is hot and burns are no fun. To put it back into skating terms, shortly after getting into figure skating I discovered that falling and bruises are not fun. Seems obvious that it might take a long (really long) time to get the basics down before improvisation can happen, but hey, I'm only four years old.

It's not that I'm afraid to try things. There's no way to be on the ice for an hour and a half without trying things. But they're all things I'd had taught to me. A professional showed me a waltz jump, now I try it each time I go to the ice. My coach and I spent weeks on inside and outside three turns. The USFSA Basic Skills Program says my first footwork combination should be:

- 2 forward crossovers
- into a forward inside mohawk
- 2 backwards crossovers
- Step into a forward inside edge

As I said in my previous post about footwork, these moves are meant to be done on a circle. You move your feet, change feet, and the direction you're facing, but you never break away from the path of the circle. I talked about how I was doing this combination, slowly and with much terror, but there's not a day that I've been on the ice where I didn't try to get better. Just the same four skills, because it was what I was told to do, had to do in order to progress to the next (basic) level of (shaky) skating.

Challenging? Yes. Rewarding. Sure. Boring. Sometimes. Inspiring and creative? No.

I can't quite recall what made me think I could noodle around and improvise on the ice, but on Sunday for some reason I found myself thinking, "Man. Fuck circles," and decided to do the elements in what's essentially a straight line. Suddenly four elements became seven:

- A counter clockwise forward crossover
- into a clockwise forward inside mohawk
- a counter clockwise backwards crossover
- step into a forward outside edge
- outside three turn on the right foot
- step into a forward outside edge (repeated element)
- outside three turn on the left foot (repeated element)
- a counter clockwise backwards crossover (repeated element)
- step into a waltz jump
- stop on a backwards pivot

Changes in speed, edge, and direction, punks. These ten element, three of them repeated are executed with varying levels of skill. Some like the outside three turn on the right are awful, some like the clockwise forward inside mohawk make me feel gleefully capable. In my previous post wrote that every time I completed a successful run of the baby, four part footwork that I felt like I was closer to being able to express myself on the ice.

How do I feel now? Well. Smashing literally everything I know how to do together and pinwheeling my arms around in an effort to maintain balance isn't exactly expressing myself on the ice. It wasn't informed by how I was feeling or by music or by anything other than my desire to see what I could do with the basic skills I've learned. But it's a start. It took me a month and a half to feel comfortable to try something that was never shown to me nor prompted.

In another month and a half, who knows what I'll be trying to do.

Kate: I Wanna Taste The Tastes And Fix The Problems

2010-11-24T10:54:00.000-08:00

I haven’t been skating recently. Today I am going back on the ice after an almost two-week hiatus, despite having had copious amounts of time off from work recently. I should have used that time to go skating and practice so that I don’t lose my mad skillz (by which I mean ability to sometimes do stuff and not fall), but instead I chose to spend my time in my PJs either on the internet, reading, or staring out the window feeling sorry for myself.

Why did I do this, you ask? I love skating! Skating makes me happy! It’s the only physical activity that I’ll willingly go do! What’s the problem?

The problem is this: I have to have surgery again.

Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with endometriosis. I’ve talked about that before on this blog, briefly, but today I am going to talk about it a little more. I had five surgeries in six years and was on unpleasant drugs that made me miserable, but didn’t really do much to fix the problem. I spent my late teens/early twenties always worried about pain. By the time I had my last surgery, my doctor was worriedly telling me that he really, really didn’t want to do this, but if things kept on like they had been, I would have a hysterectomy by the time I was thirty.

Then, something crazy happened. I got better.

My last surgery was in January 2006 and they found NO endometriosis. I still had ovarian cysts, but those are more manageable. I was even able to stop taking hormonal birth control for a while and have totally normal cycles. I barely even had to take painkillers! I had a couple of scares, but everything has been fine for four years.

Recently, though, things have gotten a lot more painful. I knew that something was wrong, but ignored it for a while, hoping against hope that it would go away. Finally, though, I realized I had to face it and I went to the doctor. I described what’s been happening, he did an exam, we sat and talked for a long time about my options and my medical history. We even went back through my file to see what things had been like in the past. This surgery is not a choice I made lightly, but it’s what needs to be done. I was really sad and basically retreated for a couple of weeks, going back to old escapism habits (reading, internet, cookies) and avoiding skating because the pain interferes with it sometimes and I find that really upsetting.

I’m going skating this afternoon, though. It’s time to stop sitting around feeling sorry for myself and go back to doing things that make me feel good physically as well as mentally. Things might be getting tough with my health, but that’s all the more reason to stick with something that helps me be healthier. I am on a break from lessons right now, but I’m going back to skating at least three times a week. It will help me to feel better about myself and the current stresses life is throwing at me.

Candice: The Difference Between Doing, Trying, and Trying to Try

2010-11-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

The other day my beloved coach who is not actually my coach full on Yoda-ed me. He basically gave me a fifteen second lesson that amounted to "Do or do not. There is no try."

While I'm not going to argue with Yoda or my beloved not-coach but there has always been something about this statement that irked me. Probably this is because an awful lot of my life spent trying, rather than doing. If my successes are only ever measured by accomplishment, that leaves me with a somewhat slim curriculum vitae, let's say.

The list of things that I have tried in figure skating is nice and long. It sits there, each attempted item highlighted, next to my computer at work. It starts from the embarrassingly simple: "Sit on ice and stand up" to the much more impressive "Waltz jump." It makes me smile to look over and see that more thing are highlighted now than not. But it's a huge bummer to think of how many of those things I can actually do well.

With the holidays I have taken a brief hiatus from official lessons. It's difficult to know when my Saturdays are free, and while I generally love spending money on myself Christmas is nigh and I'd like to make people presents this year instead of gleefully announcing, "I can do a scratch spin!" and expecting them to be as happy. The break from lessons makes good sense, but it's hard not to feel as though I'm stagnating, because that good feeling from trying something new is now gone for a while.

That means it's time to start actually doing things well. Where's the fun in that. A try is a try. It can fail or succeed and you get points for attempting something new. Doing means you have to face the fact that you still get a little tripped on counter clockwise backwards crossovers. (There's an angry bruise on my left buttcheek attesting to this fact.) Or friggin' edge pulls/power pulls. I've tried to achieve a ripping sound dozens of times. I've done it not even once. Doing means dealing with being disappointed by failure.

As in skating, so in life. I've been "trying" to explore the job market. I've been "trying" to remember to stretch everyday. I've been "trying' to eat right. This is, I've been trying if "trying" means "thinking regularly about how I need to that." I don't know what is stopping me, but I'd venture a guess that the prime candidates are "forgetfulness" "fatigue" and "fried foods."

Some things have definitely improved. Going clockwise my footwork sequence has improved, (counter clockwise, eh, let's not talk about it). Inside 3-turns are now happening instead of stubbornly refusing to happen (they're just really ugly and shaky). I've even started using music to help me get into the mood to practice stroking. Snazzy. But all of this is still kid's stuff in the end. When I was just "trying" I could pretend I was getting ever closer to the big leagues (double axel, here I come!)

I was also recently told that testing for Adult Pre-Bronze may well take two months of private coaching.I think I can do it in one but that still means that I'll be looking at Spring of 2011 instead of this year. That will in fact bring this blog up to a year, but I'd rather hoped that a year anniversary of this blog would feature me and Kate throwing the deuces at the end of a video which showed us doing some pretty slick skating. Not with us posting a certificate showing that we can do acceptable 3-turns.

Who knows, maybe some slick skating is on the horizon after all. I'm going to my Thursday practice tonight to keep doing, and keep thinking about what mastering these things will allow me to at least try. Though I admit that I do sort of wish I could strap a green muppet to my back that would squawk at me from time to time "Named must your fear be before banish it you can!"

Candice: In Pursuit of an Ass

2010-10-31T17:27:00.000-07:00

When people ask me, “Why figure skating?” I tend not to respond with “Sometimes I wish I was Johnny Weir.” While true, not everyone knows who he is, and those who do sometimes find him abrasive or repugnant (one person’s fabulousness is another person’s famewhoring). Nor do I respond with the equally true, “I have a small obsession with self-improvement and figure skating offers me the opportunity to always have harder and harder challenges” because that’s a mouthful and people would probably worry about my mental health.

So instead when people ask, “Figure skating? Really?” I say, “Yeah! I decided I finally wanted to have an ass.” Six months ago I did physically possess an ass, but it was not the ass I wanted. I don’t make it a habit of obsessing about body parts. I really don’t like being the girl who goes on a bad date and bursts out with “It’s my hips, isn’t it?” ala Tai from Clueless. But there are certain inalienable truths, and my butt was less than stellar. It had the usual problem of expanding left to right, but it also, inexplicably, up and down. If I hadn’t done something to stop it, there would have no longer been any distinguishable difference between my butt and my thighs, because though it was expansive it was also as flat as Kansas.

I had taken up running for a year, which gave me a lot more endurance and confidence and some pretty good looking calves, but my ass didn’t care. I could run six miles and my ass would have just shrugged and continued doing its best imitation of the Great Plains. Elliptical machines were similarly a bust because well, I don’t particularly enjoy being on them, particularly while precariously perched backwards and trying not to look like I’m six seconds away from falling off of it (even though I am). I did Carmen Electra’s Strip Aerobics (don’t tell my mom). I did bridge exercises and lunges, and a five minute butt exercise I read once in a magazine and carried in the back of my head for years.

But it was all to no avail. I could wage whatever attack I wanted to, but it seemed like genetics had already won the war before I even showed up to the battlefield. I got used to it, and luckily, I’m a huge example of “out of sight, out of mind.” So long as I wasn’t looking in a full length mirror I could manage not to feel too depressed about it. (And there were plenty of other things to celebrate, if you don’t mind me saying.)

And then suddenly: figure skating. Google any figure skater and take a look at the rear view. Chances are you’ll find they’re carrying some junk in the trunk, but it’s less junk and more solid muscle. Tall, short, delicately framed, or stoutly built, male, or female, it didn’t matter. They all had an ass they could be proud of. A hypothesis formed. If I stuck with the skating, maybe I could get even a pale imitation and start actually filling out a pair of jeans.

There’s not too much difference between watching grass grow and watching an ass grow. They both happen so slowly that you don’t really notice it until one day you need to mow the lawn or you put on one of your pencil skirts and think, “Oh god, I’ve gained weight! Why doesn’t this fit anymore?” For a few weeks I was silently upset at the idea that I had finally started to gain the weight I’d been holding at bay for two years. Until one day Kate looked over and said, “You’re getting such a cute little ass.”

“Really?” I asked. I was quite pleased at the thought but didn’t really believe it. Best friends tell the truth, but they also sometimes say the truth in the biggest, nicest way possible. I immediately went in search of my arch nemeses, the full length mirror. The full length mirror would never, and had never lied.

Lo and behold, people, there was an ass. Now I’m not going to say I’ve got anything back there to rival J.Lo. And certainly not my beloved Johnny Weir. But in a way it’s kind of like how Texans think we know mountains from mountains until we actually see the Rockies or some other real mountain range and go “What the hell is that? It’s huge!” Right now I’ve got my molehill, and I’m happy. But I’ve got my hobby and in a full year, who knows, maybe I’ll get that mountain.

Kate- Evaluations

2010-10-31T16:43:00.000-07:00

On the last day of skating classes, we have evaluations. I went into class on Saturday very nervous for mine because I am not strong yet on some of the elements. I figured I would fail the evaluation and be in Adult Basic 4 for another eight weeks.

WELL I PASSED. I am going to reproduce my evaluation complete with hilarious comments here, and then talk about what exactly this means.

So, here is a list of the elements I had to try and my teacher’s comments:

A. Forward 3-turns: outside & inside, R & L – “R- alright! L- oh lefty. :) getting close”

B. Perimeter stroking with crossover end patterns – “wonderful strokes – great position”

C. Forward inside to ouside change of edge sequence –“ great control, consistent size & shape, vert est. & stable on both edges”

D. Alternate backward crossovers with two-foot transition – “good! Great transitions – work on arms straight and look behind ALWAYS”

E. Footwork Sequence

1. 3-5 forward crossovers to an inside mohawk, 3-5 backward crossovers, step forward inside the circle and repeat.

“Good crossovers! Experiment with power. Try moving mohawks!”

F. Power three turns, one direction only – “R- :). Good directon and transition!”

So, basically, what all of that business and commentary means is I got a big fat gold star in skating class for being awesome and now I have to figure out what I want to do next. My choices are: stay in basic 4 until I feel comfortable, move up to “Adult Workshop” where they learn much more complicated business, or go to private lessons. The decision needs to be made quickly as the next round of classes start this week, so clearly we will be keeping you, our five beloved readers, posted about where we go from here. Things are about to REALLY get interesting in our world of figure skating.

Candice: Dr. S. Lambiel or:

2010-10-11T19:32:00.000-07:00

(How I Learned to Stop Whining and Love the 3-turn).

Today I'm going to talk about footwork and how it makes me feel like a real skater.

It's now about five months into this endeavor and we're still just scratching the surface of interesting. (Consecutive edges, though important, are never going to be described as "fireworks on ice!") We have however learned a few jumps. Or rather I should say that we have learned a few "hops": the (I shit you not) bunny hop and the side-toe hop. They kind of look like tripping on ice. Like Buzz Lightyear's falling with style, hops are like (nearly) falling with intent. I hate practicing them because I feel as though I must look like the tallest, clumsiest person on the ice when I do.

Previously I talked about being like unto a child when I skate sometimes? Well, hops make me feel like an actual baby. Have you ever seen a toddler that has just learned how to jump? How they sort of flail and get both feet maybe one centimeter off the floor and then look really proud of themselves? That's me practicing hops. Suffice to say jumps right now don't particularly fill me with glee (neither do the basics I am still begrudgingly honing) but footwork? Footwork is amazing.

Footwork, which can be straight line, serpentine, or circular, are ways of changing edge, direction and speed across the ice. Combined with the movement of the arms and changing the upper body position, footwork is basically dancing on ice. It's currently my favorite thing about the sport but it is one of the last things that most people think about when they think about figure skating. Depending on who you are the first thing that you think is either a) costumes, b) jumps, or c) Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. After jumps and costumes what usually comes next is spins and spirals and the layback freaking Ina Bauer. Footwork doesn't really become apparent until you start watching competitive programs again and again. You start to notice that some athletes are capable of skating with the music, and not simply to the music. When a skater is really good the way the move will actually enhance the music, just like a dancer.

You're not going to be surprised when I tell you that I believe some of the best examples of beautiful footwork come from Stephane Lambiel. This video contains four years of gorgeous choreography in just 9 minutes but embedding has been disabled by the user meaning that none of you are going to watch it. Shame on you. Alexei Yagudin is also very well known for his step sequences so you have someone else to compare to.

The twizzles, rockers, and other magic Stephane is doing in the above video are all light years ahead of what I can do and am practicing. Even the steps we do have in common, like lunges and 3-turns, are barely comparable. When Stephane lunges, he attains a lovely deep position, long and stretched out, with his arms in an exciting pose. When I lunge I drag and scrape my blade against the ice because I lack the thigh muscle to get in and out of it easily. I also grunt and my hands mostly just reach out and grasp at the air pathetically. Stephane does 3-turns or mohawks at a dizzying speed, and I currently do mohawks at about .000001 miles an hour. Stephane's footwork sequences are dynamic 15 - 25 second dances combining all sorts of edge changes and so on. I'm learning this:

- Two forward crossovers.
- Inside mohawk (change direction from forwards to a backwards)
- Two backwards crossovers.
- Step into a forward edge. (change direction from backwards to a forwards)

It takes about five seconds to do and is a slightly simpler version of the actual test version. Right now when I do it the sequence mostly looks like:

-Two really slow forward crossovers
-TERRIFIED stumbling mohawk
-Immediately put raised foot down and thank God you didn't fall (that's what we like to call improvisation)
-Two backwards crossovers at a good speed
-Lurch into a forward edge.

It shouldn't be fun, practicing the same steps over and over again, but every time I try for the sequence or do power three turns (which have everything! Changes in direction, in speed, and in edge) I smile. It's exhilarating and the better I get, the more I find myself thinking "Holy shit, Sochi here I come!" Sochi being a metaphor (obviously) for whenever I finally start to feel like I know what I'm doing out there on the ice.

I thought the reason that I wanted to get better was to take test levels and prove that, while this may be just a hobby, it's a hobby that I am good at. But a recent Stephane Lambiel interview made me reconsider that.

He said: "It takes so much time to be able to express such freedom, joy and sorrow. In figure skating you need the basic skills to get to the point of being able to express yourself. And that one basic thing in this sport, to just 'skate,' takes so much time to acquire. It takes even more time to become able to express various feelings while you enjoy and feel the freedom."

In the end my ultimate goal is obviously not triple jumps, it's to be able to do just what Stephane said, express my feelings on the ice and enjoy the freedom it gives me. Triple jumps wouldn't give me that even if I could do them, but dancing across the ice hopefully will. It's going to take a lot of work to get to that point- even on dry land I'm not really much of a dancer, well, at least not while sober -but it's going to be worth it, I think.

I've always been a creative a person. Ever since I can remember I've had an active imagination and a desire to create stories and characters. But my whole life I've also been confined to only be able to express myself through words. I can't draw, I can't sing, I dance like a drunk white girl, and I'm not really all that crafty. I like interior design but you don't usually say, "This room expresses how I'm feeling today." This is exactly why I think I keep pushing and pushing myself with this skating thing. One day I hope to finally hitting the point where I can use something other than words to say what I feel and to feel the kind catharsis that right now I can only get through words.

I just think that would be a huge gift to myself. And to everyone that ends up having to listen to me talk.

Kate: Work Your Way Out

2010-10-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at the rink, I was practicing power three turns, which basically meant I was doing an s-pattern on the ice – I would do a three-turn, then glide into a backwards crossover, then step back out into a three-turn. I’m not very good at it yet, but I was really getting the hang of it when I noticed that my left foot was hurting a lot. I tend to ignore pain in that foot because I broke it a year and a half ago and it’s been troublesome ever since. This pain, however, was deep and intense.

I thought I’d just take a break and try some Mohawks because I’m finally starting to master them and I wanted to practice some more. That’s when everything really went south. See, doing the mohawk, I flipped from going forwards and my left foot was like “AW NAW HELL NAW” and the pain was suddenly really intense. I tried doing several more elements, and it got to the point where even skating with any weight on ol’ lefty was painful.

I try to be kind to my foot (and the rest of my body) and remember to take anti-inflammatory drugs and take breaks to massage it when it gets really painful. Yesterday, though, I just fought through because I got really upset and frustrated. There’s nothing more annoying than something as simple as pain holding you back. It’s just not something you can control.

When I got really angry, I decided to do lunges (literally, you lunge forward into a deep knee bend with one leg while dragging the other behind you. The goal is to get your back foot parallel to the ice.) until I wasn’t angry anymore. So I did. For ten minutes, I did lunge after lunge and complained to Candice about the pain in my foot. Finally, when my legs were shaking and I had finally run out of curse words, I stopped, took a breath, and realized it had worked. I wasn’t angry anymore, I was just exhausted. So I got back to practicing what I was doing, and worked through the pain.

I’ve spent a lot of years struggling with chronic pain. I have endometriosis (don't know what that is? Try google or wikipedia!), which used to cause That Time of the Month to be so painful I couldn’t get out of bed. I’ve had five surgeries and unpleasant drug therapies that have long-term effects. After my last surgery, my doctor told me that if things kept on the way they were, I would have a hysterectomy before I was thirty.

Since then, I have had a marked improvement in my health and have managed to lead a quite normal life, despite a couple of scares and some ongoing pain issues. I spent years learning to manage pain, how to live with it. I have always firmly believed that if I just keep moving ahead, eventually I’ll work past the pain or figure out how to work around it. This is why I kept skating, even when my foot was hurting so badly I had trouble putting weight on it. Pain isn’t something I give in to. Pain is something I push into the background so I can get on with my business.

This story is not to illustrate what a badass I am. It’s to illustrate what a moron I can be sometimes. Skating isn’t easy. It’s not just hard to learn, it’s really hard on your body. When you’re a kid it’s much easier to deal with falls and muscle exhaustion and pain from old injuries, but as an adult you have to be much more careful with yourself. After I got off the ice yesterday I was in pain for the rest of the afternoon. We ran errands and I could just feel all the bad things I had done to myself.

Eventually, we stopped and went back to Candice’s apartment to stretch, and that took care of a lot of the problems. What we SHOULD have done was stretch immediately after skating, and what I personally should have done was get off the ice and give cranky ol’ left foot a break. It’s hard to remember sometimes that if you push yourself too far, you’ll regret it. We’re both strong and have a lot of endurance, so we’re often like “No, no, it’s no problem! I GOT THIS” and then three hours later we’re both weeping about muscle pain.

So, lesson learned. Be nicer to myself and stretch, for goodness sake.

Kate: Testing, Testing...

2010-09-29T17:53:00.000-07:00

Sit down, five readers, and grab yourself a drink. Miss Kate is gonna teach you about test levels today. See, Candice and I are veeeery slowly preparing to start attempting figure skating tests, as I mentioned a couple of entries ago. I'm sure some of you are thinking "tests? What are they going to test you guys on? Falling? A+!". Well, there are two test tracks, one for the young whippersnappers who have Olympic dreams, and one for old people who just want to compete in stuff with other old people and have some fun. OBVIOUSLY, we are in group two.

The lowest level of the adult test track is called "Pre-Bronze". It consists of two parts, "Moves in the Field" and "Freestyle". We are working on things for both, but we have to pass "Moves in the Field" to move on to "Freestyle". With MitF, we basically have to show we can skate several patterns, some of which I have discussed before. This part used to include tracing figures on the ice, which is where the term "figure skating" comes from. History lesson! You're welcome! Freestyle is just showing we can do basic elements - spins, basic jumps, and a lunge or spiral. The first test is not that difficult, but we are going to have to buckle down if we want to actually pass it. I confess I've been a bit lax recently with my practicing.

After we pass pre-bronze, the next levels are Bronze, Silver, and someday when we are super awesome skaters, Gold. I'm not even going to explain what those test ask us to do, because I don't want to depress myself too much. It would be very cool to start passing tests and competing soon, though.

So! There you go! A quick lesson on wtf we are talking about when we mention "testing".

Candice: Like unto a child

2010-09-28T09:36:00.000-07:00

I think that means what I want it to mean. What I want it to mean is figure skating turns me into a child. And I don't mean that in the "the magic of Christmas connects children ages of one to ninety-two" way. I don't mean that each time I step onto the ice I am overwhelmed by the magic of figure skating.

I mean that I feel like a baby that doesn't know how to do anything.

For me the worst thing about becoming an adult figure skater is getting onto the ice and thinking "Okay. I'm going to try practicing a one foot spin, but I'm going to take it slow and easy to start" only to look up and see an eight-year-old practicing a sit spin with a change in position. It's an odd feeling to be outclassed by someone that doesn't know how to drive, pair wine with food, and is not allowed to touch the stove if their parents aren't home, and not one that I particularly enjoy.

Recently my new coach had Kate and I go back to the basics because, frankly, I'd been a little "Fuck the basics" lately. Mastering things takes time (who knew?) but doing something once means I can cross something off the list. My learning philosophy had sort of become a bit too "So who cares if I can only do a right outside three turn only about 20% of the time? I did it. Let's move on to inside three turns, please."

But instead of indulging this impulse our coach had us try to do Basic 1 and 2 moves as fast as possible. "Let's see how fast you can do swizzles and then backwards swizzles," she said, asking us to skate forward about half of the rink forward and then back. The answer to how fast we could go was (not surprisingly) not very fast at all. I hadn't done a swizzle since... I don't even know, maybe June. Why? Because swizzles are LAME and look nothing at all like a double toe loop jump all the eight to fourteen year-olds are practicing.

That's right. I wouldn't practice swizzles because I was embarrassed to be a twenty-six year old woman practicing swizzles in front of kids who learned swizzles when they were five. But you know what's more embarrassing than having an eight year old sneer at you? Having your coach bust you back down to four months ago.

This valuable lesson learned, the next day I went to the rink, put in some earbuds, and turned on my iPod. I haven't skated much to my own music because I was afraid it would distract me to the point that I accidentally hit someone while skating (my worst nightmare!). In actuality it's not that distracting. I could see and sense the eight-year-olds and hockey skaters but also ignore them as I spent maybe twenty minutes practicing forward crossovers in a serpentine pattern, just doing them over and over again.

I realized that my left over right crossovers were very weak and uncomfortable. My right leg is stronger than it was back at the start of all this, but still a bit leery of holding deep edges. As a result when doing forward crossovers I looked more like I'm tripping than anything else. Not cute, but it's getting better. I also rediscovered the joy of slaloms. It's actually only a bonus that I now feel more confident doing slaloms much faster now because they are a nice way to surreptitiously shake my booty as I listen to Gaga's Pokerface and imagine I am Johnny Weir.

There's also the matter of stroking. Kate has been lovely enough to define and complain about stroking so that I could pretend it doesn't exist. It's supposed to be this graceful, extended way of moving across the ice but when I do it looks like "LURCH into position, hold uncomfortably, LURCH into second position, hold uncomfortably, repeat." Again it is embarrassment holding me back. Stroking is a massively fruity way of moving across the ice. And I have to do it while guys in hockey skates zip around me, furiously fast and with no wasted movement. It's like I'm trying to do ballet leaps across a field while a cross country runner is passing me and saying, "Excuse me. Actually running here..." Instead of going whole hog, I usually tried to hedge my bets by doing it as secretively as possible. Of course this means I am really bad it, fruity ways of moving usually need more commitment in order to seem awesome. Not less. But again the iPod helps me to want to practice stroking more by providing more appropriate music to "float" to instead of Blink 182.

My reward for getting back to the basics was a lesson centering around jumps and a footwork sequence. I'm so excited about the footwork sequence I'm actually having trouble creating a blog post around beyond "OMG YOU GUYS! I'M GONNA BE STEPHANE LAMBIEL." I'll get back to you all when I can calm down about it, though, I promise.

Candice: My wildly unpopular opinion

2010-09-13T18:28:00.000-07:00

Layback Ina Bauers are boring.

There, I said it. I'm sorry. I know that everyone in the world prefers to watch female skaters instead of male skaters and everyone is in love with the way women just float across the ice, like little angels in chiffon or whatever. But frankly a Layback Ina Bauer looks like the skater passed out on the ice, but the forward momentum she had before she lost consciousness keeps her moving.

BEHOLD:

(source: Getty Images)

(Please note: I think Shizuka Arakawa is amazing. Even though that is in fact her signature move.)

In general people will actually look mildly shocked when I say that I would prefer to watch mens single skaters over female singles skaters any day. But every time I have confessed my opinion about the Ina Bauer move to a lifelong skater I generally get a polite, but unmistakable "Who farted?" face. And that is not an exaggeration. Three people have done it. Maybe because places like icenetwork.com declares "[a]n Ina Bauer is considered one of the most beautiful moves in figure skating." Too bad. Because I still I hate them.

You know what I do love? Spinning. Look I brought examples!

Stephane Lambiel is the Master of Spins. Please ignore the lame moniker because it's true. I love him, and not just because he's like the handsome European prince I used to dream would find me at school and take me away to a world of ball gowns, Rolls-Royces and waving politely at the commoners. ...Ahem.

I also love him because he can actually evince emotion while spinning like a top. His spins are wonderfully fast, centered, and stable but he still puts the effort in to striking meaningful positions, and holding his hands in such a way that it's less about the fireworks and more about the beauty of the spin. (Clip is set to start about 5 seconds before the spin):

Stephane is my favorite spinner, but of course ladies can spin, too! And how. Mirai Nagasu is an amazing spinner. And so bendy! In this clip she does two very solid sit spin positions, and then launches into a layback spin so fast and flexible it takes my breath away (also set start right at the spin).

In 2009 the Nebelhorn Trophy Gala found itself with two famous spinners, Stephane Lambiel and Alissa Czisny so they decided to have a "spin off." Literally. In essence, they are SPIN DANCE fighting. Alissa hits more poses, but Stephane beats her for speed and endurance:

If you really want to do things completely you should google/youtube Lucinda Ruh. To hear Crotchety Uncle Dick Button tell it Lucinda Ruh was the single greatest spinner ever. She used to spin both directions, in the snow, everyday at 4am before she had to milk the cows, or whatever. (No really, she's great.)

And lord but do I have more examples, (Stephane's near minute long spin in one of his old exhibition programs, the amazing speed and energy of his spin in his William Tell competitive program, Plushenko's Beillmann spins, Adam Rippon's lovely donut spin from the 2010 World's, and the glory that is side by side camel spins in pair's skating) but I don't want to overwhelm you. I think I've made my point abundantly clear anyway.

Ladies' skating: Quit hitting the snooze button in the middle of your programs and gimme some razzle dazzle.

Kate: Punished for Arrogance

2010-09-13T17:56:00.000-07:00

We have started our fourth round of skating classes. I've been practicing three-turns like mad, ready to show off my skills to our teacher, Miss Jen. At the same I was also trying mohawks, which are two foot turns on the same edge that continues along the same lobe, but I need a lot more help with those. I did finally master three-turns on both feet, but mohawks remained elusive. I not only managed to complete the turn, I even held the backwards edge!

This very exciting for two reasons - 1) I have detailed why I have trouble with backwards edges on this blog, so actually holding one was awesome and 2) I broke my left foot in May of '09 and to this day I have problems with pain. Getting ol' Lefty to do something correctly was awesome!

So. We get to class. We had a new teacher who we had met once before, when she subbed in our class months ago. This was a bummer because she doesn't really know us or how far we had come, but she's really nice and a good teacher, so whatever. THEN. My three turns ended up being heinous. Awful. THE WORST. I could not freaking get them. Everything else I tried, I blew at, including spins as well. So sad!

And THEN. In the last minute of class I decided "Fuck it. I'm gonna do a mohawk." You know, the element I can't quite seem to get the hang of? Ever. I did the turn, I went straight down onto the ice onto my left hip. Did I mention the eight year olds shooting around us clamoring for their class? They were right there to see my collapse. Luckily, it wasn't even a quarter as bad as my nasty fall a few weeks ago. It was just embarrassing.

So! I got cranky, and then I got cocky, and I was punished for arrogance. The end, a story by Kate.

Kate: Stroking is not a euphamism.

2010-08-29T14:46:00.000-07:00

We've started practicing in earnest for taking the Pre-Bronze test levels. I will make a post on what that means tomorrow. Or later this week. Or next month. You don't know what I might not do.

...Anyways.

We're learning things like "backwards edges," "consecutive edges" and "forward perimeter stroking". If you're wondering what the hell those are, here are the links from a couple of different sources: consecutive edges and forward perimeter stroking. I love consecutive edges because once you get the momentum going, they're actually pretty easy and you feel quite graceful as you glide along. I've been working particularly hard on stroking because when you do it, you're only allowed eight or fewer strokes before you have to hit the finish.

Yeah, I know.

So, all of that is hard, but I'm actually enjoying it. It's fun to feel like a baller on the ice.

Trying to master backwards edges, on the other hand, is made even harder by the fact that I had a spectacular fall while working on them two weeks ago. Not fun. I started to skate backwards by doing some half-swizzle pumps for momentum, then lifted my left foot in front of me to try and glide backwards on my right outside edge. Well, I did glide...through the air. Somehow both feet went out from under me and I landed with a jarring thud on the top of my ass, right near the base of my spine. The palm of my right hand took a what impact my tailbone didn't and it felt like my entire spine shook when I hit the ground.

So...that was both terribly painful and embarrassing.

It took me a few minutes to get up and once I did, I was shaking so badly that I was pretty useless for the rest of class. It took almost a week to fully recover from that fall physically, but mentally I'm still totally freaked out. After a week of nanny-goating, today I managed to get over some of the fear and do backwards edges again.

My project for the next week or so will be putting on my big girl panties and practicing going backwards. I'm very slowly regaining confidence, but my dignity is still nowhere to be found. I'm cool with that, though. Dignity and I aren't usually on speaking terms anyways. Who needs her?

Candice: I plan on dying in the middle of a hobby.

2010-08-11T17:43:00.000-07:00

Honestly I never know what is going to fly out of my mouth next.

Me: I want to re-learn French.

The World: Okay. Maybe a bit impractical in Texas where a significant chunk of the population speaks Spanish but hey, what's the harm?

Me: And I want to take up figure skating.

The World: What an... unusual hobby for an adult to take up. But you know what, whatever gets you excited about physical fitness is great.

Me: I'd also like to take up pickling. I could TOTALLY be sitting on some sweet and spicy refrigerator pickles right about now...

The World: Wait, what? Pickling? Didn't you just mention learning French and figure skating?

Me: Yeah, but the point is, I'd like to go to more wine tastings.

The World: Wine tastings? When are you going to fit in more wine tastings? Is there a special 3am wine tasting for manic/depressives and security guards that just got off the clock?

Me: It's just I'm able to recognize flavors now, but I can't remember their names. That's it. French, figure skating, pickling, and wine.

The World: I mean I guess that reasonable... with some careful scheduling.

Me: And the tango.

The World: Pardon?

Me: I'd like to be able to dance the tango.

The World: Since when?

Me: Since five minutes ago when I this old couple totally rocking it to Otoño Porteño.

The World: Yeah, okay. But just because you see someone do something doesn't mean you-

Me: I also have a blog. You should check it out.

The World: All right. That's nice. I'm just gonna- I'm gonna go stand over here now.

Me (shouting after them): I make hats in my spare time! Would you like me to make you one!!

Kate: No pain, no gain. Ow.

2010-08-10T18:44:00.000-07:00

Sometimes (like, all the time if you read this blog), it seems like learning to figure skate is full of good cheer and sunshine and delight. Well, it is all of those things, but I confess that there are days where it is freaking tough. On Sunday I had trouble lacing my skates tightly enough, then my feet were killing me, and I could not seem to make my limbs do a single thing I wanted. My muscles seriously felt like they had no power at all and I was all wobbly, which is very unusual for me.

About 30 minutes into our usual Sunday practice I was near tears with frustration. Now, people who have known me for a long time are aware that I do not like to be bad at things. My default mode is to give up. On days at the rink where it feels like nothing is going right, I don't give up. I skate around the ice as fast as I can, doing simple tricks and concentrating on picking up as much speed as possible. Then, when I've worn out some of my anger and frustration, I go back to trying whatever it was that was pissing me off (currently: mastering those damn backwards crossovers) and ignoring the pain in my feet.

I did learn a valuable lesson on Sunday, though, and that is that I'm not training enough off the ice. I also have done the stupidest thing possible and haven't been warming up before I go out there, which probably explains a lot of my physical problems. The point of this hobby is not to seriously hurt myself, and if I keep on the way I've begun, I will eventually do some nasty damage. Every time I go to the rink I'm so eager to get on the ice and start, I don't know, magically doing the triple axels I can totally do in my head that I just lace up my skates and race out there. Stupid idea which leads to frustration. Hmm. I'm seeing a pattern here that I need to break.

ANYWAYS. On to a list of new things I've learned how to do and am currently working on mastering.

Lunges: You lunge one foot forward and allow the other foot to drag behind you. What's hard is not having the back foot catch and either make you start to turn or fall on your face.

Three-turns: A one-foot turn with a change of edge that results in a '3' shaped tracing on the ice. This one is very hard because I'm terrified to turn on one foot. I can successfully do it two-footed, but that's not how to works. SCARY.

Backwards crossovers: Forever and always working on these. They're hard. You cross one foot over the other while going backwards to pick up speed.

Candice and I learned a dorky ice dancing move that I can't remember the name of right now, but just know it was awesome. Because we are awesome.

Kate: All We Know Is Falling

2010-07-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

So, one of the things you have to get used to when learning to ice skate is you are 100% going to fall. Everyone falls. Children, professional figure skaters, amateur league hockey players. They make special shorts with butt and thigh pads in them to help cushion your falls while you're learning jumps. When I went to Stars On Ice like three of the pros full on beefed it. In beginning ice skating classes one of the very first skills they teach is how to fall and get back up. They don't teach you how to not cry when you eat it and hurt yourself, but trust me. That's a skill that you will learn all on your own.

I've been skating since I was a kid and have managed some pretty dramatic falls in my day. One time I was racing on the ice in hockey skates and an unwitting figure skater wobbled out into my path. I was unable to stop and I hit them at full speed. We both went flying and I somehow managed to rotate 180 degrees in the air and ended up landing on my left hip. I had to get off the ice and rest for a bit after that one, but it wasn't long before I was out there again, recklessly shooting around with no regard for the safety of others.

These days, I'm a little more cautious. Falls hurt more - I'm by no means old, but I'm not exactly the spry thing I was back when I skated regularly as a child. I tend to fall like I'm sliding into home base - one time I was trying to do a spiral (definition of what that is was in my last post) and I leaned deep on my inside edge and ended up sliding across the ice on my leg. That one was more funny than painful - if I'd thought to artfully lean my chin on my hand, I might have even been able to make it look like I did it on purpose. One time Candice and I were doing the thing where we help each other skate backwards fast - she was going backwards and I was forwards and we tried to whip around so that I was the one going backwards. We were punished for arrogance when we both careened off and I ended up on my butt while Candice windmilled her arms and legs, trying not to end up see-sawing on my head, and finally landed on her knees. I had a glorious bruise on my rear the next day, but it wasn't so bad. Once again, more funny than painful.

My most recent fall, however, was a little less hilarious. I was once again practicing edges and trying to do a spiral properly and I was looking at my feet, not the area around me. I ran into Candice and somehow bounced off of her and went right down directly onto my kneecaps, then belly flopped and slid across the ice like a penguin. I managed to get up all by myself, clutching the tattered shreds of my dignity, and then skated over to the boards to lean and do that thing where you laugh a little hysterically because you're trying not to cry. I was smart and I took medicine, iced it, and elevated it and I wore a brace when I went skating the next day, but I'm still sporting big sexy purple bruises on each kneecap.

The cool thing about moments like that is the other hardcore skaters are usually sympathetic when you fall. People will offer you a hand up and tell stories of their own dramatic collapses and joke about the laugh/cry thing. Candice and I always fist bump when we beef it and then get back up and keep going because that's what it's all about. You fall down, sometimes in a very dramatic way that makes you look as stupid as humanly possible, and then you get back up, dust the ice shavings off of your pants, laugh at yourself, and keep skating. I always feel like a badass when I manage to stay on the ice for a long time after a fall, then I limp home and seriously think about investing in some of those butt pad shorts and knee pads. The metaphor for life's hard knocks is so obvious here it's almost ridiculous, but hey. Figure skating never shies away from cheese and literalism.

Candice: Fragile Figure Skating Alliances

2010-07-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

I think it's safe to assume that back in May everyone at our ice rink thought we were losers. Sized up by girls and men with various levels of expertise we were found lacking. We could buy skates but we couldn't buy class. Or talent. "Congrats on the backwards swizzles, loser, could you get out of my way so I can do a lutz?"

Even the ice rink employees regarded us with a certain level of bemusement. Over and over again, despite the presence of our skate bags, they asked "Do you need to rent skates?" Because, I guess, most adults coming to skate were either well-known regulars or people who were coming to skate for amusement or nostalgia.

Despite seeing the same faces three times a week Kate and I kept to ourselves. Keeping to ourselves unfortunately means being loud and foulmouthed and doing a lot of mock choreography. Practicing our fledgling skills meant we were often in the way, interrupting jumping passes and footwork sequences with embarrassed "Sorries!" thrown over our shoulders because we didn't know how to stop very well. Children who had never skated before did not pay us any attention and looked instead with envy and confusion at the wizardry being performed by more advanced skaters.

By the end of June I figured there would never be a sense of camaraderie. A big part of this is my age. Seeing an eight year old girl practicing backwards crossovers anyway while you struggle with a one footed backwards glide is pretty dignity robbing. To actually ask an eight year old girl practicing backwards crossovers how she does it would be humiliating, pointless and, well, creepy. The same goes with the handful of older teenagers as well, all of whom are usually engaging in the essential teenage activities of gossiping and badly flirting.

Some of the employees are closer to my age, but no matter what they might feel about myself or Kate, they are working and probably aren't all that thrilled about it. To be a twenty-six year old groupie to the guy who drives the zamboni while listening to Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" is just as dignity robbing as watching a 12 year old complete a jump combination while you're patting yourself on the back for bunny hops.

But then. There are the other adults. Some are coaches, some are clearly advanced skaters, and then the other novices. The grown women with children who are maybe only a year or two beyond my skill set. We skate passed each other a hundred times, we sit close to each other as we unlace, and we don't speak. I wonder what they think of me, because I think they're endlessly intriguing. Are they reclaiming a lost skill of their youth? Is this all as new to them as it is to me? Why do they do it? Do they wonder why I'm still here? Still trying?

I thought maybe I'd never know the answers, but it turns out I just needed to be more patient. Slowly, overtures are being made. A small chat here and there, a slight commiseration about backwards crossovers. An employee that recognizes us and seems glad to chat. No names have yet been exchanged, but the ice is beginning to thaw. Kate and I have dubbed many of them with nicknames which might not seem complimentary but are actually quite fond: "Sister Wife," "Jay AND Silent Bob," "Captain Cranky Pants."

How close the community is, how widely reaching, I don't know. There may be a wicked hazing in my future, but somehow I don't think so. Johnny Weir and Stephane Lambiel have both expressed how lonely ice skating is. It's often you on the ice, and except during for competitions, the only thing you are trying only to beat is your own limitations. It's hard to make eye contact with people when you're looking down at your own feet.

But with patience came backwards crossovers and small talk. With more patience... who knows?

Kate: Awesome Things That I’ve Learned How to Do

2010-07-04T17:17:00.000-07:00

Well! Two weeks ago I was like “no, for real, I’m going to update the blog EVERY SUNDAY and stick to a schedule because I am a responsible grownup” and then last Sunday I went to Hamilton Pool and swam and hiked and swam some more and then went to Resa’s to watch Be Good Johnny Weir and was so tired when I got home that I was like “fuck it, I barely even skated this weekend anyways and I was full of fail.”

THIS Sunday, I’m all responsible and awesome. My laundry is done, my bathroom is clean, and oh WHAT I skated for two HOURS yesterday without falling. Candice and I made a deal that we would skate until we fell and we finally hit the point where we were so tired we were trying to fall so we could just go home already. We finally gave up. I was cold, exhausted, and my legs were killing me. I felt like a BOSS. These are some of the cool things I have managed to master:

Backwards half-swizzle pumps: basically, I keep one foot straight and use the other foot to push myself along.

Backwards one-foot glides: I literally go in a straight line backwards and pick my foot up and skate along on one foot. This is very hard and scary because I always feel like I’m going to fall. I’ve only mastered it on my right foot, which is stronger because ol’ lefty got broken last year.

Going from backwards skating to forwards without losing momentum (two-foot turn). This one was surprisingly easy, you just have to find the sweet spot on your blade where it’s easy to whirl around.

Two-foot spins: I can do three revolutions easily now. BAM. I also picked up my foot on a spin, but I have not yet mastered the one-footed spin. That’s next on the list.

Spiral: You skate on one leg with your other leg extended behind you either at or above the level of your hip. I can get my leg about to hip level so far and am working on getting it higher. It’s fun and difficult and excellent for showing off while skating.

I’m really working to master outside and inside edges (basically, a figure skating blade has two edges and a hallow in the middle. You use your edges to help you with different moves), which is also pretty tough.

Candice and I have been practicing tandem stroking (basically skating along together and pushing off our blades in a certain way) and tandem crossovers. It’s really hard because she’s so tall - she has to shorten her stride and I have to concentrate to keep up. It’s really fun and silly, though. We always end up getting the giggles and almost knocking each other over. Yesterday we were messing around and decided to go with one of us skating backwards and the other was skating forwards. Whoever was going forwards held the hands of the person going backwards to support them and watched out for small children in hockey gear and we went really, really fast around the ice. It was scary, but also really fun and helpful because it allowed me to become more confident with picking up speed when skating backwards.

Speaking of small children in hockey gear, they are both adorable and a major hazard on the ice. I’ve almost mowed down like nine million of them.

So, there you go. A brief recap of the fun things we are learning to do. I start my next class on Saturday and I hope to master backwards crossovers (I did some yesterday but I can’t keep moving when I do them. I always panic and stop myself with my toe pick). Apparently I’m supposed to start learning a very basic jump soon, which I am over the moon about. Candice and I are picking up skills so quickly. We’re a long way from actually learning a death spiral, but we’ll get there!

In closing, I leave you with a link to a video of my favorite pair of all time, Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov. This number, done to Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise”, was inspired by Rodin’s sculptures. They are absolutely incredible, and if you’re wondering what the hell we’re talking about when we yap about learning a death spiral, you can see these two perform a gorgeous one in the video at 2:01.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ8Amo7fSuM&feature=related

Candice: I see you shiver with antici...pation

2010-06-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

When did it start? This problem of me never wanting to do things that are athletic?

When I was young, pre-school aged, I remember being the type of kid that could get very easily lost in my own mind. For example, I had these small, neon-colored dinosaur figurines that I was obsessed with but I didn't run around with them, roaring and trying to get them to bite the other kids. No, I gave them elaborate fantasy lives and moved them around the little patch of rug I occupied and built them houses out of Lego blocks.

Conversely, I did love swimming. My mother deemed me a "water baby" and each summer I would spend as much time as possible in the water. I stayed in pools, rivers, and lakes until my eyes burned with chlorine, or until the pads of my fingers were so wrinkled they actually hurt. I took swimming lessons, dived for pennies, but I was by no means a natural talent. The last time I attempted to learn how to dive I was 19 and I mastered only the "unintentional belly flop of wild embarrassment" technique. So as you can imagine, it was never something people said, "Hey! You should really go somewhere with this!"

I remember elementary school, being taller and heavier than most of the other girls. I remember not being flexible. I remember that damn Presidential Fitness Test and straining futilely to touch my toes, to complete a pull-up. I remember Track & Field day and being good at two things: sailing over hurdles meant for children four inches shorter than me (but still losing the race because I wasn't very fast) and being the anchor for tug of war. I remember I loved school because the answers came so easily, but I started to hate P.E. for constantly showing me what I wasn't good at.

Burgeoning adolescence helped nothing. I became shyer and more terrified of making a fool of myself in front of others. The changes in my body made my limbs traitors to me. I was singled out by gym teachers as needing to work harder, or else ignored as hopeless. I slowly and steadily ticked off the athletic activities I discovered that I hated, baseball, basketball, archery, flag football, soccer, jump rope, running, tennis, and standing around in the heat. Of all the sports they forced us to try I enjoyed only volleyball and badminton. And biking. I had a black and pink mountain bike that I thought was the best thing in the world, and I rode that thing through the neighborhood, through the creeks and forests near my house all through middle school.

But I grew older, heavier, and crankier. I decided at 13 that a mix of punk/goth fashion and attitude would be the only way I could take control of how I felt like the outsider. It goes without saying that wearing black make-up and black mesh did not further encourage an active lifestyle. I thought idly about losing weight, mostly in unhealthy ways, like smoking, or not eating. Now and again I'd think, "I'll start exercising." It never stuck. I never joined a team (see: I was punk, okay?) A life of sedentary grousing and avoiding the sun seemed quite likely.

Oh but then college happened. Suddenly it felt like everybody had an athletic hobby. My roommate biked. My boyfriend jogged. A classmate was on the swim team, the football team, the soccer team. My friends went to the gym regularly. People told me that they like to kayak, or box, or played racquetball. People signed up for intramural sports. I had all these new friends and yet I was completely helpless to join in their reindeer games because I'd spent the past ten years insisting that I was allergic to working up a sweat.

So "I'll start exercising" became a more common refrain. I became familiar with the elliptical machine. Then broke up with it. I bought Tae Bo videos. Then stopped doing them. I took up walking. Then decided I didn't like walking in the neighborhoods I lived in. I took an interest in yoga. Then started finding other things, like drinking, more interesting. I also broke up with boys and ended up with a fierce yearning for confidence and a sense of control.

At 22 I started a real diet, and a real exercise plan. I decided to become a runner. Running is a mystery to the nonathletic. Why would you just... run? How could it be fun? How could burning lungs, abused knees, and tired legs be fun? How could you want to do it for HOURS at a time? Aren't marathons the literal definition of insanity? Of masochism? (It makes a man's nipples BLEED, people!) But runners are also disgustingly healthy. I wanted that look, that lifestyle, that smug sense of being better than non-runners.

I ran for a minute at a time, then two, then five. I ran a mile, then two, then three. I lost weight, I gained stamina, I found that there was joy to be had in running, in beating a time, in going further. It was often satisfying, sometimes soothing, sometimes fun, but it lacked an important factor: Anticipation. I read about it, about how seasoned runners would find themselves cranky if denied an opportunity to run, about how people felt they needed it.

I didn't realize how important it was at the time, but running could only satisfy me AFTER I did it. Though I could be quite giddy after I finished my final lap, standing at the start of my run I never felt any glee, any butterflies, only dread. Before running I often thought about the time commitment, the sweating, the exertion. Before running I tried to find every possible excuse NOT to do it, even if I knew I eventually would go for my 30 min jog. The smallest hiccup in my routine, in my health and boom, why bother running? After moving to Austin, changing my routine, I gave running up for a year and barely thought about it.

I wasn't a runner. I was a pretender. All the diet books told me plainly that if I couldn't view diet and exercise as temporary fixes, that they had to become a lifestyle change or I'd gain back the weight. I was fiercely afraid of that, but felt too apathetic to fight it. I gave up the lifestyle, I gained a little weight. In a panic I joined the gym and tried to get back into the love of running. It didn't take. The old excuses were back.

Enter figure skating. We fall in love. We hold hands and I marvel at how "I've never felt this way about a sport before." Figure skating smiles and says, "We've only just begun." Enter the nefarious villain the car accident who tries to tear us asunder. As usual the gym falls by the wayside; I do not think about running. Not once. However, at one point in the week I was without a car and scrambling to deal with it, I realized that I would be unable to make it to my customary Thursday practice. I genuinely considered going to skate during my lunch break before heartrendingly and hilariously remember that I DO NOT HAVE A CAR.

I was desperate to skate. Not once in the past four years did I ever feel desperate to run. What running should have been, figure skating is.

Somehow of all the sports that I have tried, dismissed, or watched people perform with longing it's figure skating that finally provides me with anticipation. I look forward to it constantly. I miss it fiercely when faced with the possibility of NOT skating. I smile before I enter the ice. I try to bargain more time out every time I go. I trip, fall, discover my legs are shaking and still I want to skate more. This is why I knew I could commit to a year of learning, to a year of skating.

I guess you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince, and I am thrilled that I finally have.

Kate: Let Us Live Feeding on Joy

2010-06-14T18:54:00.000-07:00

Since I started figure skating, I've encountered several common reactions - everyone says something, but it generally boils down to one of three comments: 1. "Figure skating? That is SO AWESOME. Tell me more." 2. "Figure skating...in Texas? Why?" 3. "Figure skating....in your twenties? Why?"

I never get tired of going skating. It has helped me focus in so many areas of my life. I hate going to the gym, but it's easier to make myself do it because I know that if I can can strengthen my legs and my core, my skating will improve. I've had a lot of trouble with eating right, but now it's easier because I see how much healthier and better I feel on the ice when my body is properly nourished. I've had a lot of difficulties with my emotions over the last nine months and when I get on the ice, it all just falls away. I am literally filled with joy. I will skate as fast as I can and put my arms up so I can feel like I'm flying.

Every time I master a new element, I am proud of myself. I want to work hard and improve and maybe start passing test levels. I keep finding reasons to go skating more often. Candice and I talk non-stop about skating and ways to shoehorn more skating into our very busy lives. I just figured out that I won't get to skate at all next weekend because I'm going out of town and that actually made me pause and think about whether or not I really NEED to see my family. (the answer: yes I do). I have never found any other form of exercise that made me feel this way. I will literally push myself until my legs are shaking. Last weekend I fell because I was practicing outside edges and my legs were tired and I just completely beefed it and slid across the ice. And then I got back up and skated for another twenty minutes before finally giving in and going home.

It's so great to know that the minute I step on the ice, I'm going to feel good. I have walked into the rink with a thundercloud practically following me around, I was so cranky, and within thirty seconds of putting on my skates and getting on the ice I was smiling and laughing. So, when people ask me "Why?" I tell them "Because it makes me happy." And that's enough for me.

Candice: I'd rather be skating...

2010-06-08T17:01:00.000-07:00

Okay! So that part where I thought I'd managed to get up and shake off the worst of the car accident! Nope. The following week I discovered my sweet little Suzuki was going to that big dealership in the sky, I committed to my first major purchase in adulthood, then quite quickly went to Denver for a brief vacation and came home to hit the ground running when it comes to my social life.

In other words, clearly I am made of fail for not squeezing blood from the turnip and finding a moment to post. But please, dear four readers, don't assume that at any point in the past two weeks I spent more than an hour not thinking about skating. Because, wow, I totally was. The nice thing about an insane hobby is it affords a lot of different types of escape.

Need to feel motivated? Think about how you've mastered only about a sixth of the basic footwork defined by the US Figure Skating Federation.

Need to feel soothed? Watch Stephane Lambiel's Ne Me Quitte Pas or Johnny Weir's Feelin' Good and be gently lifted away by art.

Need to feel invigorated? Get on the ice for half hour and let the cold bite your face while you find out you're better at something this time than you were before.

Need to laugh? My God, people, it's figure skating. It's pretty much guaranteed to make you laugh. The costumes ALONE are worth their own post.

Want drama? People. Skating has drama. Remember Tonya Harding? Or Surya Bonaly weeping openly at the 1994 World Championships and refusing to wear the Silver Medal? Or what about the PTSD inducing crash had by Jessica Dube and Bryce Davidson?

Feeling like indulging in a little schadenfreude? Watch Brian Joubert meltdown in his 2010 Olympic Short Program and then turn the Kiss and Cry section where he awaited his score into the Frown and Swear.

Need to cry? Read about the tragic love story of Sergei Grinkov and Ekaterina Gordeeva. Or watch Joannie Rochette's tribute to her mother who died DURING the Olympics.

Anyway, point is, there's a figure skating for every mood. I'm pretty sure that aerial skiing can't claim that.

Kate: Movin' on Up

2010-06-06T19:47:00.000-07:00

That is a picture of me ice skating in 1990, age seven. I was going to include a picture of myself skating today, but I can't get the link to work and I want to get this update moving!

Candice and I have been bumped from Adult Basic 1 to Adult Basic 2. We're supposed to get patched for our jackets so we can show off our skills. Whee! I'm excited to move up and learn new things because that's what this whole hobby is about. Stepping outside the comfort zone and trying to be a stronger, more physically fit person.

We had our first Basic 2 class on Saturday and for the first time I really struggled in a skating class. We're learning crossovers, a basic spin, and stroking, all of which are hard. Stroking is very difficult because it involves moving your legs in a way that feels very unnatural, so you have to concentrate and train yourself to do it properly. I practiced it for a long time before I tried crossovers because I want to do things properly. I've always been an impatient person, eager to move ahead and just be good at something already. With skating, I am very willing to work in baby steps. I see what practice does - by the end of class and the half-hour we spent practicing afterwards, I had mastered stroking and could do crossovers with minimal failure. You learn things in bits and pieces in this sport. We learned swizzles, then half swizzles, then stroking, then we combined all of those into crossovers. I was happy with every step. I feel strong and good about myself when I skate. The spin is very difficult because I'm scared of falling, but I'll get it.

Here, also, is a list of what all this blather means for people who aren't figure skaters:

Crossovers: Crossing one foot over the other as a way of gaining speed and turning corners.

Swizzles: A way of moving across the ice on two feet by pushing the feet outwards from a 90 degree angle V and then pulling them together again, forming an oval on the ice. Also known as scissors, fishes, or sculling.

Half Swizzles: Doing swizzles in a circle while keeping one foot steady and using the other to push out.

Stroking: A way of moving across the ice and gaining speed by using the edges of the blades.

Candice: What I Have in Common With the 6 Year Old in the Helmet

2010-05-15T13:38:00.001-07:00

I'll give you three guesses as to why I feel like me and a 6 year old boy could swap some stories on the ice. No, it's not our mutual love of Chef Boyardee or our shared fascination with dinosaurs.
No, we both fell flat on our asses today and got up laughing. The only difference is he was falling like 1 foot down onto the ice because he was approximately 3 feet tall. I was falling roughly a million feet because I'm actually taller than the entire world. (I have photographic proof, in fact. See below: )

That's me, busy being taller than a refrigerator in my skates. So when the little boy falls down, he giggles and gets up and rockets off for more mayhem. When I fall down, I laugh because it's funny, then get up gingerly and try to pretend my ass isn't shouting "What the fuck?" at me.

Anyway. Before today, I've only fallen once on the ice during several weeks of skating. It was something of a matter of pride, but at the same time, I knew it wasn't a streak that could last. Everybody falls. Olympic skaters, child prodigies, hell, one time I saw a figure skating coach full on eat it. I was trying to make peace with the concept that I'm not going to learn to jump without falling. Still, I was sort of hoping to do that on my own time.

But the universe decided to help me out a bit by abusing my body before I ever even got on the ice. Yesterday I got in a car accident and so maybe I wasn't exactly bringing my A-game to the lesson today. That's right, for those of you who doubted my commitment to sparkle motion, I'll repeat that. I got in a car accident yesterday and still went to skating class.

The car accident was mild, and involved only me and my complete negligence for vehicle maintenance. It was raining yesterday and my tires slipped a little while I left a parking lot, but did I think, "Hey now, Candice. Be careful on sharp turns. Your tires seem to be having an issue" to myself? No, I did not think that, I thought, "Dude, is there anything OTHER than Lady Gaga on the radio?" And as my reward, I skidded across a wet patch of road on the access road of a major highway and hit the median.

Embarrassed, I tried to reverse and drive away only to discover that I had actually REALLY broke it. I broke my car. I couldn't even open the passenger side door. The axle was bent, the tire was popped. I'd officially screwed up big. I spent the next hour sitting in my car in the rain, calling people on the phone, while people drove past me, and a sweet co-worker of mine and a cop waited for the tow truck. It was my first real accident, the first time ever that I'd rendered a car un-driveable.

Did I cry? No. Not even when I realized that the insurance my mother pays for me is liability only. Meaning that it is all on me to get this car fixed. Meaning that a planned trip to Montreal is off. Meaning that "No thank you," is going to have to start coming out of my mouth more and more. As in:

"More wine, madame?"
"No. Thank you."

"Would you like to try this on, miss?"
"No. But thank you."

"Would you like to super size this for .75 cents today?"
"Let me check. ::opens wallet:: No, thank you."

Did I cry? No. Did I want to. Yes. Luckily, my family has passed down a long and storied tradition of coping with life's little curve balls: drinking. Wine was poured for me by 6:30pm, and remained steadily available until midnight. I tried to stretch out the tension and soreness in my back and neck, but even laying down I knew there was no real way to fight it.

But skating class was pre-paid, non-refundable, and cannot be rescheduled. I got up this morning, put on my leg warmers, and went to class. My back was stiff, and I had to take two Aleve before even walking out the door, but I went. I think I fell within the first five minutes of class, first executing that classic sort of Scooby-Doo-running-in-place move before ending up ass first on the ice. Undeterred I brushed off the ice, and set about trying to master swizzles, backwards swizzles, half swizzles, one footed glides (...sort of) slalom, backward slalom (...not really). Crossovers were discussed but by no means attempted. And then, magic words came from our instructors lips: "Let's do a spin."

I am mesmerized by spins. I'll soon be writing up my experience seeing Stars on Ice where I will explain why some traditional, well-beloved figure skating moves leave me snoring with boredom, but good lord, do I love spins. The only cruel thing was the instructor had us try it at the very end of class with barely a minute to really attempt it.

So what did I do? Did I say, "Well Candice, you've done enough. You were in an accident yesterday, and there'll always be more ice time later." No. I immediately paid the fee for to keep skating so I could practice my very first spin. I got up to two full rotations (listen, you gotta learn to walk before you can blur) and bam, down a go a second time, smack dab on the same ass cheek as before. No matter, though! No mind! I was attempting spins. I was spinning! I was getting a step closer to actual figure skating. This was big. This was fun.

Still, I thought, let's take a break, eh? Let's practice some simple skating and try not fall again. We're skating, we're skating, we're inexplicably digging a toe pick into the ice and executing the patented slapstick comedy belly flop and slide forward with arms out and legs splayed. Your dignity, Candice, it's flying out the door!

Kate got me back up, we laughed to show it was all good. I brushed the ice off for a third time, and spent a minute or two doing some simple skating to show the 10-year-olds and bored, teenage ice referees that I was fully capable of walking it off like a champ. I don't think I fooled anyone, least of all myself. By that point, my knees were developing bruises and my shoulders started to refuse to unclench.

Getting lunch helped. Taking a nap helped. Writing this blog about failing, spectacularly, to drive or skate or make it through a simple weekend without acquiring a few dings, but pushing on through helped. And by help, I mean it helped me to not care about the bruises or the ache. I need absolutely no help at all in wanting to keep at this. In fact, I ended up at the ice rink the very next day, practicing my one little spin, my stops, and my slaloms. And wouldn't you know, I didn't fall once?

The Background: Kate

2010-05-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

In August of 2008, I packed as much of my stuff as I could into two suitcases and moved my entire life to Japan. I'd been feeling restless after graduating from university and figured that going out to teach in a foreign country and see the world was the way to scratch the itch. At first, I thought it was hands down the worst decision I had ever made in my life, but as I began to make friends and travel and become a better teacher, I slowly fell in love with my life there. The first year was rocky, but the second year got off to a great start - I was doing well at work, I was finally recovered from a broken foot, and I went on a couple of fun trips including a trip to the mountains to go paragliding. My best friend/former roommate/current blog partner Candice came over to see me for my birthday. I was thinking about other places I could travel to, maybe spend a year in South Korea teaching or go to Australia for a working holiday.

On the second day of Candice's visit, I got a call from my dad. My mother had died quite unexpectedly of a heart attack.

Of course, everything came to a screeching halt. We somehow stumbled through the rest of the week, then flew to the US. I decided pretty much immediately that I was going to move home. I returned to Japan two weeks after my mother's funeral and told my boss that I would be leaving the company right before Christmas. I spent the next two months in a fog, waiting until I could be with my family again.

When I came home, I was still pretty shell-shocked. I went to parties where I'd sneak off to cry. I wasn't drinking too much, but it was hard not to try and find some way to drown how sad I was. I live with my father and brother in the house I grew up in. The loss of my mother is tangible here. Her things are still in the closet, her pictures are everywhere. She died here. It was really hard to deal with how suddenly my life had changed - I felt like I didn't belong here anymore, even though Austin is my hometown. For a while, the grief was even worse because I really had to face it. I started trying to move forward step by step though. I spent a few weeks lying around doing nothing, took a trip to Portland and Seattle to see friends, and ended up getting a job as a nanny through a friend of a friend. I joined a gym, my friends invited me out and didn't mind that sometimes I cried in public. I started attending grief counseling.

Then, one night, I went ice skating with some friends. Now, my brother played hockey for ten years, so I grew up around ice rinks. I took lessons as a kid. I've always loved figure skating, but for some reason kept it a secret. Then, when idly talking with Candice, I discovered that Chaparral holds basic skating classes for adults. We signed up, started going skating regularly, and discovered how awesome it is. I love skating - when I get going really fast and just let myself glide with my arms out, it's like flying. So yeah. One year, one Olympic level element. We're gonna do it.

The Background: Candice

2010-05-13T08:06:00.000-07:00

One morning I woke up, opened the fridge and found nothing but half a can of diced tomatoes and some pickles. I was not surprised. I am a single, 26 year old woman living alone in apartment with 2 cats. I had also recently gone on a binge of going out; the past five days I had gone out with friends and bad dates all while working forty hours, exercising, and struggling with an exhuasting cough caused by surprise seasonal allergies. And all while simultaneously not going to the grocery store, not doing the dishes, and refusing to acknowledging that I would eventually find myself facing a Saturday morning alone in a messy apartment with nothing for breakfast.

I dealt with this situation quite practically: I finally went to the grocery store and bought the next week's worth of food. Mostly whole foods, mostly healthy, mostly things I will have to cook myself. And yet while there I bought myself a can of Spaghetti-Os. Shortly before 11am, I sat down with a steaming bowl of carbs and fatty protein. Some people feel guilty about cracking open a can of beer before noon. I feel guilty about refusing to brunch on the fresh fruits and vegetables I bought in a vain attempt to feel like an adult so that I can indulge the same crappy food I ate at 8 years old. The facade of responsibility is undone during a two-minute microwaving of Franco-American bachelorette chow.

Welcome to the life on the twenty-something. Life is a mix of everything you expected, work, happy hours, feeling responsible every time you pay your bills on time, buying elegant and expensive shoes and eating tuna salad on Saltines while standing over the sink in your pajama pants. For every time I feel as though I could be in a TV commercial (happy, successful yuppie girl meets her happy, successful yuppie friends for yoga while talking about their favorite brand of yogurt!) I end up remind myself that, like a commercial, I can only maintain the veneer of perfection for a brief period of time.

In fact, my embracing of the three y's (yuppie-dom, yoga, and yogurt) is itself something of a veneer. I was an unhealthy, unflexible, lower-middle class teenager. Now I set goals for myself (learn more about wine, stay within a calorie count, run a 5k in 35 min.). I no longer have a daily Cheez-it quotient or buy clothes from Wal-Mart, but does that change who I am inside? Am I some sort of classist version of an the term oreo? Yuppie on the outside, white trash on the inside? How thick does the yuppie layer have to be before no one even notices the fact that some members of my family live in tailer parks?

I set my life goals for the day: vacuum, respond to emails, and ice skating. Yes, you read that right. Ice skating. In my entire life I have skated only twice before. Once in Girl Scouts (hated it) and two years ago I went with my best friend and roommate (and now co-blogger) Kate. During the next hour and a half I fell only once (on freshly Zamboni-ed ice) and had a pretty good time. Kate and I were living in San Antonio at the time, suffering through the post-college, post-the dashing of youthful dreams about an easy transition to a fun, successful adulthood. I thought to myself at the time "I should DO this" but of course I didn't. I had important moping to do.

Now because of the recent Winter Olympics and figure skater Johnny Weir's glorious, self-constructed media-blitz I am reminded again of the fun I had back when the only fun I had usually involved drinking and bitterly complaining. Kate and I often get notions (oh do we ever) and we had decided the day before that there was no better way to spend our Saturday night than re-connecting with that old joy. We invited our various hip friends along via Facebook, picked out self-important outfits, and generally thought to ourselves, "Oh this'll be hilarious."

Later that night we approached the ice with hearts filled with irony-ladened amusement. Little did we know where it would end up.